Here is a selection of this week’s letters:

Parking at Worcestershire hospitals needs sorting

IT IS good news that County Hall parking is to be freed up for Worcester hospital staff, but please could the hospital authorities urgently address the problems of disabled parking at Worcestershire hospitals?

This can be extremely stressful and counter-productive when attending medical appointments, especially trying to meet an appointment time.

I am an 82-year-old OAP (Blue Badge holder) with mobility problems and invariably find it extremely difficult to find a disabled bay at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital.

If I am lucky enough to find an empty standard bay there, the walk to the hospital entrance is difficult.

At Kidderminster Hospital parking is generally difficult for both disabled and mobile drivers.

At Bromsgrove’s Princess of Wales Community Hospital, disabled bays are often fully occupied.

I try to get my appointments at Redditch’s Alexandra Hospital which has reasonable disabled parking, but often I have to queue up until a bay becomes free.

I appreciate the hospital authorities have greater problems other than parking, but it has to be accepted that older and disabled drivers form a greater proportion of the hospital population than normal and provision should be made for them.

It does not appear the proportion of disabled bays matches the number of drivers badly needing them, although other car parks, such as council and supermarkets, have similar problems.

Bromsgrove OAP

Pleased Rubery is getting a revamp

AS A resident of Rubery for the last 45 years, I am pleased to see the council is taking the village seriously.

Unfortunately, from experience with our Labour councillors, that means destroying character buildings in the village such as the old police station.

The biggest worry is, the council taking a wrecking ball to the village high street and knocking buildings down .

Having said that, there needs to be a revaluation of the types of retail outlets allowed and the shop front signage that makes village look like a slum.

There are some of us old enough to remember how attractive the old high street used to be and how it was a very pleasant place to shop.

Grahame Bennett

Rubery business mix also needs addressing

RUBERY High Street is in desperate need of refurbishment.

The planning department must take some responsibility for the numerous vape shops, Turkish barbers and American candy shops.

How many of these businesses do we need?

Parking must remain free to shoppers, maybe a limit of two to three hours per stay would be acceptable.

That’s probably enough for now until the plans for the area are made available.

John Best

Meeting place and community garden

ON THE question of Rubery High Street (New Road), there is an area to the side of the library that could be made into a beautiful seating area and meeting community garden.

Whatever happened to the million or so pounds promised for the library anyway?

Tony Cant

Why is beer in Bromsgrove so expensive?

WHY ARE we being fleeced on a pint of beer?

£4.70 is the average price in Bromsgrove for a pint of beer!

Whilst outside Bromsgrove, just seven miles away in Oldbury it’s half that price?

If one pub can do it, others can also there’s surely no arguments there.

And why the meals – for a simple lunch – over £20?

My wife came back and said I had this and that on my plate at a pub today with her pals, I will not name the pub and what was on her plate.

She assessed as being worth only £4 if that? So why over £20. This gives the manager a £16 profit!

I part-ran a pub in Northfield many years ago and know the overheads but the prices are now a RIP OFF for sure and whilst people pay these prices it won’t change.

Back to the beer prices, wholesale you can buy lager at 90p-a-pint so that means the manager gets a profit of £3.80.

So total profit to the manager of this pub, on one person having a pint and a lunch is £19.80.

Back to the pub in Oldbury, if he can do his price and make a profit, so can the ones in Bromsgrove.

I rest my case!

Stan Francis

Romsley

Please help combat child poverty

I WRITE not as an actor, but as someone who has lived through the brutal reality of poverty.

As the youngest of five children, I had a blissful childhood until my father tragically died when I was eight.

Overnight, our world changed, and we were plunged into poverty.

I experienced firsthand how poverty doesn’t just take away comforts, it also steals your childhood and hope for the future. I was one of the lucky ones to have managed to turn things around, but I know that today, the odds are stacked high against families who are trying to do the same.

Right now, 4.3million children in the UK are living in poverty – nine in every classroom of 30. They are children whose futures are being dimmed by a system failing them.

It’s easy to believe poverty happens elsewhere, yet it’s on our doorsteps. It’s the child on the bus, the child in the school playground, the child nextdoor.

You see it in small, heartbreaking moments – a child tugging at clothes that fit them too snugly because new ones aren’t an option, children overhearing their parents worried about how to make ends meet. These burdens weigh down on young shoulders that shouldn’t have to carry them in the first place.

Ahead of the publication of the government’s new child poverty strategy, I’m supporting Action for Children’s ‘Paying the Price’ campaign.

This calls on the UK government and devolved nations to lift more than 1million children out of poverty by 2030 and halve child poverty within 20 years. The challenge isn’t just a moral one, it’s also an investment in our country’s future.

Will you help by signing Action for Children’s Open Letter to the government? Every child deserves a safe and happy childhood, free from the stubborn grip of poverty.

Brian Cox

Actor and Action for Children supporter

EDITOR’S COMMENT

THE DISCOVERY of the Gutenberg Bible page in a Bromsgrove attic, dating back almost 600 years, is an incredible find and will help put the town on the map.

As well as there only being 49 copies or substantial portions in the world, the story of how it was found by the extensive exploring and keen collecting great-grandfather during the early 1900s is also intriguing.

It will be interesting to see where the page goes to next.