From bus fares to school plans: Your views

PICTURE FROM THE ARCHIVE: Spectators scurry away from the water's edge as a dramatic wave from the Severn Bore crashes over the riverbank at Stonebench in Gloucestershire in 1953. Known as one of the most popular vantage points along the river, Stonebench offers a front-row view of the impressive natural phenomenon, where a heaving wall of water surges upstream during spring tides. Funnelled by the unusual shape of the estuary, the powerful surge often catches onlookers off guard as it sweeps violently past the grassy banks. The dramatic photograph captures a thrilling moment of surprise and retreat as spectators scramble uphill to escape the cold, muddy spray. Have you ever witnessed the incredible power of the Severn Bore in person? Do you remember travelling to watch high spring tides or dramatic natural sights during the 1950s? | ©PA

placeholder image — PICTURE FROM THE ARCHIVE: Spectators scurry away from the water's edge as a dramatic wave from the Severn Bore crashes over the riverbank at Stonebench in Gloucestershire in 1953. Known as one of the most popular vantage points along the river, Stonebench offers a front-row view of the impressive natural phenomenon, where a heaving wall of water surges upstream during spring tides. Funnelled by the unusual shape of the estuary, the powerful surge often catches onlookers off guard as it sweeps violently past the grassy banks. The dramatic photograph captures a thrilling moment of surprise and retreat as spectators scramble uphill to escape the cold, muddy spray. Have you ever witnessed the incredible power of the Severn Bore in person? Do you remember travelling to watch high spring tides or dramatic natural sights during the 1950s? | ©PA

Our readers have their say on bus fares, pension rises, the countryside and the future of a Shifnal primary school

Why let people off their fare?

Why do some drivers let people get on the bus when they have no intentions of paying? The same people get on at Russell Hall Hospital each day and then go to Burnt Tree to scrounge money from passing motorists at the traffic lights. When I asked the driver who let them on his reply was 'couldn't care less - what an attitude.

No wonder bus fares keep going up.

Nora Bryan, West Midlands

Pension rise just goes on tax

It all sounds hunky dory that, from next April, pensioners will, unless the rules change, get an increase in their pension of 3.9 per cent. This may be adjusted downwards if Andy Burnham has his way.

However, because the Personal Allowance has not been updated for many years, most of the triple lock will be clawed back in income tax! How can HMRC tax our meagre pensions and sleep at night? It has been estimated that we are all worse off by £800 under Labour's tax-and-spend policy, yet politicians seem better off. Nothing changes, eh!

Name and address supplied

Landed gentry good for us

In reply to Roger Norton, yes, I have eaten grouse in the 1950s when a guest of Sir Maurice Bromley-Wilson at Dallam Tower, Milnthorpe, but not since. Very good it was, too!

I don't know what people like Roger have against what he regards as the landed gentry, but these people managed the countryside a lot better than happens today, and generated a lot of employment.

On the sporting estates, an abundance of songbirds was testimony to the control of predators that now are so abundant that we don't get any Dawn Chorus, unless it is the croaking of ravens and magpies.

W F Kerswell, Picklescott

School rebuild a waste of money

As a neighbour, tax payer, council tax payer, town council tax payer, I strongly object to this total waste of money on the demolition and rebuilding classrooms etc on this inappropriate site, with its costly constraints. It is the proverbial 'trying to get a quart into a pint pot’ resulting in no extra school spaces/staff parking spaces and increased long standing traffic congestion/parking problems/decreased highway safety along Park Lane with its narrow carriageway and footways and 30mph speed limit.

Lets go 'Back to the drawing board' here and reconsider the new development in this area before it is too late!

This is in an inappropriate area of Shifnal in the 21st century for the school due to the huge transport problems and site restraints. There is an opportunity to relocate the school land within the 'safeguarded land' shown in the Shifnal Neighbourhood Strategic Plan.

The present school site is very valuable and more appropriate land for new housing development land with access to the new roundabout at the A464/Lloyd Drive junction. New trees could also be planted on the adjoining unused land next to Wadlow Drive.

The sale of the present school site would more than cover the cost of rebuilding a new larger school to meet the needs of the future housing developments in Shifnal, thereby saving the tax payer a huge amount of money.

Peter Hassall, Shifnal

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