Replace former fire station and library with a ‘Bromsgrove Kingfisher Centre’

WITH regard to your article on the old library and fire station site a few months back, as a Bromsgrove resident and frequent visitor of the High Street, I would suggest it be made into a smaller version of the Kingfisher centre in Redditch.

I believe there is a demand in Bromsgrove for clothing stores, a Homesense store, cinema, etc.

The last things Bromsgrove needs are more supermarkets, care/retirement apartments and houses, especially as over 1,000 homes are due to be built along Perryfields Road.

I hope you can appreciate my thoughts and care for the town.

Jack Haughey

Action needed to put a stop to schoolchildren vaping

MOST mornings I drop my child off at school before I start work.

This morning I saw three children in a period of fewer than five minutes with vaping devices, blatantly vaping within metres of the high school.

It horrifies me that children can a) get hold of these devices which you MUST be over 18 to purchase and b) are potentially harming their bodies. (unwittingly).

Vapes and e-cigarettes are designed to be used by adults, and I can appreciate the part that they may (or may not) play in helping adult smokers be smoke free by 2030.

The British Heart Foundation recommends that “E-cigarettes and vaping should never be taken up by people who don’t already smoke, but could be a useful tool to help people to stop smoking completely.”

Vaping is still addictive, and can be dangerous.

It can cause EVALI – e-cigratte, or vaping, associated lung injury.

E-cigarettes produce an aerosol by heating a liquid that usually contains chemicals which help to make an aerosol. It is not harmless water vapor. The aerosol that users breathe may contain harmful or potentially harmful substances –

Nicotine – Not only is nicotine addictive, it can increase blood pressure, heart rate, flow of blood to the heart and a narrowing of arteries, hardening of the arterial walls. All of these may potentially cause a heart attack.

Ultrafine Particles that can be inhaled deep into the lungs.

Diacetyl – It can be found in some flavourings and is a chemical that is associated with serious lung disease.

We were all teenagers once, and remember what it was like to try things, or to look cool in front of friends, or to impress other peer groups.

I don’t want to single out or shame our teenagers because they’re not doing things out of malice, they just don’t do a full risk assessment that perhaps you might do as an adult. That part comes with age and experience.

Let’s support our children, and let them know the dangers and risks associated with vaping.

To shopkeepers – please ID Everyone who looks under 25.

To people who may purchase these devices for school-aged children.

Other than it being illegal, please don’t. You could be giving them a life-long or life-limiting health condition.

Kerry Jones

Bromsgrove

MP needs to do more for his constituents

SO Janice Boswell MBE congratulates our MP Sajid Javid upon his new appointment as Secretary of State for Health and Social care and finished off by stating: ‘He knows he can have any support from Bromsgrove people if he needs it’. Really?

Will these be the same people who have been asking for his support over the 12 years he’s been their MP and never received it or the people who have been misguided in their thinking he would help them fight the massive housing project being passed through now?

But, of course, we should have all realised he would not have a clue about the daily impact massive traffic jams that we now have to deal with daily through our roads because he spends nearly all his time in London. What would he know?

So why should any of us vote again for this career politician who holds our concerns so unimportant and ‘always follows the party line’ rather than the true concerns of the electorate.

No, he’d never get my vote again and can forget the other worried constituents that he has ignored for too long, I doubt if he will get theirs either.

Yes, Janice, you’ll be safe in the knowledge that your green corner of Belbroughton is free from any large building expansions whilst you and councillors mainly abide on the outer edges of Bromsgrove and vote accordingly.

Anita Hill

Bromsgrove

More help is needed for people with learning difficulties

BIRMINGHAM City Council, back in 1980, had 40 care homes for people with learning difficulties.

Now there are only 20.

This saves millions of pounds in money but costs more in misery, suffering and loss of life for people with these problems.

They themselves cannot be held responsible, nor their parents.

Blame the council, uncaring governments and ministers.

With the right support, people with learning difficulties can thrive.

Me and my wife set up Rathbone House in 1980 and then she set up another six.

They were run by committees of volunteers from residential schools.

We looked after more than 100 people with difficulties and saw what could be achieved with the right support.

Ron Kimberley

Rubery

EDITOR’S COMMENT

THE GOVERNMENT’S announcement that all restrictions will come to an end on July 19 has divided opinion across the country.

A YouGov poll shows 71 per cent of Brits say face masks should be mandatory on public transport and 66 per cent in shops.

Whilst masks, the one-metre social distancing have been legally scrapped and the amount of state intervention reduced, it is up to people to make their own individual choices to ensure they protect themselves and others.