28 1GM Friday March 6 2020 | the times
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor should be sent to
[email protected] or by post to
1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GFand your leading article both say
there is no alternative to building in
the green belt. I disagree. There is
plenty of open countryside in most of
the southeast that is unprotected by
green belt, Area of Outstanding
Natural Beauty or flood plain
designations. It is called white land
and we should start looking at it.
Ian Campbell
Retired land buyer and chartered
surveyor, Richmond upon ThamesSir, The very “suburban sprawl”
deplored by your leading article is
what the big housebuilders habitually
inflict on the countryside. You
advocate building on the green belt in
greater degree than in the “very
special circumstances” at present
allowed (report, Mar 4), but there is
no logical end to such development.
The same applies to “relaxing
planning restrictions” on building on
ordinary countryside that you also
advocate. What is needed instead is
denser, higher housing closer to town
centres, which also makes for more
civilised living: it involves less
commuting and leads to closer
communities and other benefits.
Edmund Gray
Iffley, OxfordPhenomenal Burke
Sir, Matthew Parris’s comment piece
(Feb 29, and letter, Mar 3) on David
Frost’s selective quotation from
Edmund Burke in his presentation of
the benefits of Brexit reminded me of
a question that I once asked the great
historian of political theory, Quentin
Skinner, in the mid-1960s: “Why
haven’t you included Burke in your
course on the history of ideas since
the Renaissance?” Skinner paused for
a moment. “Because I consider,” he
replied, “that Edmund Burke was a
phenomenon, not a thinker.”
Quite so.
Professor Sir Christopher Frayling
BathSir, Your leading article and the letter
from John Melvin (Mar 5) are
pertinent for people living in
Woolmer Green, a village a couple of
miles from Welwyn Garden City,
which is celebrating its hundredth
anniversary this year. As Mr Melvin
points out, “[Ebenezer] Howard was
emphatically against building
in... the green belt”. We do, however,
have a paradox here as Welwyn
Hatfield borough council’s much-
delayed local plan is still awaiting
approval by the planning inspector.
So where should the required
number of new houses be built? The
openness of the original garden city
plan should not be compromised,
which means that any development
will necessarily have to be in a toroid
around the town, ie in the villages,
and mine is destined to almost
double in size, the majority of the
proposed building being in the green
belt, forming a dormitory suburb.
Unlike Oxford and York, Welwyn
Garden City will be approached
through a desert of urban sprawl. I
agree with Mr Melvin that the
Oxford-Cambridge corridor should be
the solution to the problem.
Judith Watson
Woolmer Green, HertsSir, Regarding your report “Greener
petrol at the pumps from next year
will cut pollution” (Mar 4), clearly no
one at the Department for Transport
saw fit to tell Grant Shapps that his
announcement on “E10” petrol is a
repeat of that made by the same
department in 2005. The execution of
that policy evaporated in a haze of
government indecision, prevarication
and legislative U-turns, so that while
other countries, particularly the US,
have the bioethanol manufacturing
capacity to supply their E10 markets,
the UK has insufficient bioethanol
manufacturing capacity to cover its
E5 demand let alone the E10 that has
again been proposed.
Given that it takes at least five
years to plan, design and build a
bioethanol manufacturing plant I can
only presume that Mr Shapps intends
to supply UK forecourts next year
with E10 magicked from the same
thin air as the electricity necessary to
charge the 32.5 million electric cars
that we shall all be driving by 2035.
Andrew Hartley
Director, Vireol Bio-Industries,
Wetherby, W YorksList of the world’s
greatest leaders
Sir, A surprising omission in the list of
great leaders, voted by the readers of
the BBC World Histories magazine
(“Womanising warrior is greatest
leader ever”, news, Mar 5 ), is the
Emperor Ashoka. He was one of the
few to have ruled virtually the whole
of the Indian sub-continent, from
circa 265BC to 238BC. Having
renounced the violence of his early
years, his rule was characterised by
active social concern, religious
tolerance, ecological awareness and
the repudiation of war. In his Outline
of History, HG Wells wrote: “Amidst
the tens of thousands of names of
monarchs that crowd the columns of
history... the name of Ashoka shines,
and shines, almost alone, a star.”
R P Fernando
Epsom, SurreyPolanski boycott
Sir, Max Hastings is right (“We
deserve right to see Roman Polanski’s
new film, Mar 4). I live in Belgium so
was able to see J’Accuse —An Officer
and a Spy — and I agree that it is
extraordinarily powerful, brilliant
cinema, even a work of art. It tells the
story of a gross miscarriage of justice,
prejudice, antisemitism and a sad
episode in French military history.
I do not condone Polanski’s
behaviour but If we are to boycott all
works by dubious artists, or those
who, like Oscar Wilde were once
deemed worthy of a prison sentence,
we will find ourselves with precious
little to see or hear.
Helen Campbell
BrusselsSport without fans
Sir, It is disappointing that Matthew
Syed (“Sport without fans just isn’t
sport”, Mar 4) does not consider our
Sunday tennis four or the Wednesday
and Friday golf events sport. We may
be rather short of spectators (none
ever) but there is no lack of
competitive edge and enjoyment.
There may appear to be a lack of
“instinctive athleticism” to the
nonexistent spectators but this isn’t
the perception of the participants. We
are participating in great sport.
Tony Davison
Thorpe Bay, EssexMedical mangling
Sir, Further to the letter from
Dr Anthony Hillard (Mar 4), as a
medical student I used to refer to that
famous station as King’s Cross
St Pancreas and the singer as Urethra
Franklin. On occasions I still do.
Richard Primavesi, FRCP
London W12Corrections and
clarifications
6 We reported yesterday (“Oxford
dean ‘mishandled assault case’ ”, Mar
5) that Christ Church, Oxford, had
passed details of a past sexual assault
allegation to the police. The dean, the
Very Rev Martyn Percy, has asked us
to record that two weeks earlier the
police had informed him they were
not currently investigating the
incident as the alleged victim had
never reported it to them.
The Times takes
complaints
about editorial
content seriously. We are committed to
abiding by the Independent Press
Standards Organisation (“IPSO”) rules
and regulations and the Editors’ Code of
Practice that IPSO enforces.
Requests for corrections or
clarifications should be sent by email to
[email protected] or by post to
Feedback, The Times, 1 London Bridge
Street, London SE1 9GF
Charity inquiry
Sir, On Monday you reported (“Christ
Church Oxford tries to silence
defence of dean”, Mar 3) how the full
governing body at Christ Church was
emailed by their junior censor on
Sunday and asked to delete without
reading the full unredacted
investigation report into the dean’s
conduct that they had been emailed
hours earlier. Yesterday (reports, Mar
4 & 5) the Charity Commission’s
report on Save the Children strongly
criticised the then senior board
members for undermining good
governance by not sharing their full
investigation report into executive
conduct with their full trustee board.
The Charity Commission needs to
highlight any substantive difference in
these two cases from a governance
perspective or explain why it has not
yet opened a formal statutory inquiry
at Christ Church.
Christ Church is clearly an
institution and a charity that needs
immediate regulatory protection from
itself. The Charity Commission is a
regulator that needs to act and be
seen to act equitably and impartially.
Toby Porter
Member of Christ Church 1987-91;
Oxford
Building affordable homes on the green belt
Sir, Your plea (“Housing Benefit”,
leading article, Mar 4) for piecemeal
nibbling at the green belt for housing
estates overlooks the fact that green
belt land on the edge of towns is
already being released through local
plans. Moreover, the main purpose of
the green belt is not “to protect the
environment” but to curb the spread
of large urban areas (cities such as
Oxford and Durham being special
cases). In the southeast this has
caused the growth of housing and
jobs to “leapfrog” to towns such as
Reading, Basingstoke and Newbury,
allowing many more people to live
near their places of work and
reducing the pressure on London,
achieving much of what the “garden
cities” were meant to do.
Rather than fostering isolated green
belt estates for long-distance
commuting, the government should
be promoting and facilitating this
dispersal. That said, building
attractive places at the higher
densities needed to lower emissions is
a challenge yet to be properly faced.
Chris Bedford
ReadingSir, Sir John Armitt, head of the
National Infrastructure Commission,Greener petrol
from the times march 6,1920A PIONEER
OF SCIENCE
thetimes.co.uk/archiveCoronavirus and
NHS pension fears
Sir, As we head into what will
probably be an unprecedented period
of demand, we can ill-afford for the
NHS workforce to be weighed down
with worries over their pensions, with
senior doctors having to refuse to fill
gaps in staffing rotas for fear of being
hit with hefty or unexpected tax bills.
The government has attempted to
temporarily resolve this issue by
pledging to cover the tax bills of
members of the NHS pension scheme
who are in senior frontline clinical
roles in England, but these measures
cover only the 2019-20 financial year
and apply only to senior clinicians.
It is to be hoped that the
chancellor’s budget next week will
provide a longer-term solution, as the
existing rules send out the completely
wrong signal to the NHS workforce at
a time when we could need to rely on
them more than ever.
With consideration being given to
calling on a Dad’s (and Mum’s) Army
of retired clinicians to help to care for
patients and get NHS services back
on track, the government shouldmake full use of its existing regiment
of hundreds of thousands of senior
doctors and other experts that it has
at its disposal already by dealing with
the annual tapered allowance.
Niall Dickson
CEO, NHS ConfederationSir, I lived in Houston, Texas, a few
years ago and was impressed by most
supermarkets having disinfectant
wipe dispensers at the front of the
store, so that customers could clean
the handles of shopping trolleys
before doing their shopping. This
would be an excellent idea to adopt.
Dr Robert Inglis
Duncton, W SussexSir, When I entered the supermarket
in Wengen today I was presented
with sanitising hand cream and
surgical gloves before making my
purchases; all the staff including those
at the checkout wore the same gloves.
Trust the Swiss to be ahead.
Charles Brown
Wengen, SwitzerlandLetters to The Times must be exclusive
and may be edited. Please include a full
address and daytime telephone number.Few appeals addressed on behalf of
the scientific world to the public at
large can have borne so long and so
distinguished a list of subscribers as
that which we publish today in
support of a chair in radiology to
commemorate the work and
researches of the late Sir James
Mackenzie-Davidson. The object
should touch the imagination of a
people so lately emerged from a war
in which the X-ray saved almost as
many lives as were destroyed by
enemy action. The nation’s gratitude
must, unless we are mistaken, be
powerfully stirred by the recollection
that this great boon was due to the
fact that Mackenzie-Davidson andothers devoted themselves with zeal
and patience to the work of
converting a miracle of science to
the uses of human necessity.
Mackenzie-Davidson occupied a
position by himself in the medical
world. He was in many senses the
pioneer of X-ray work in this
country. His fertility of resource and
of imagination was remarkable.
When the new ray first engaged his
attention as a practising
ophthalmologist, he perceived in an
instant its application not only to
his own speciality but to the whole
field of medicine, and even to the
still wider fields of commerce. That
early vision enlightened all his
subsequent work. The world owes
him much, and even yet radiology is
a subject scarcely emerged from
infancy. That the moment for its
systematic study and careful
treating has arrived no one aware of
the facts can doubt for an instant.
Vast benefits remain to be won bothin the battle with disease and in the
struggle for economic progress.
They can be obtained only by a
policy of forethought and of
imagination similar to that which
Mackenzie-Davidson followed.proposed radiology chair
It is in the belief that the scientific
study and teaching of radiology will
materially add to the wellbeing of
the human race that the committee
venture to put forward this appeal
for public support. The object is one
which cannot but appeal to the
imagination of all men anxious to
secure the benefit of their fellows.
Cheques should be made payable to
the London Joint City and Midland
Bank, crossed “& Co.” and marked
“The Mackenzie Davidson
Memorial Find,” and sent to Dr.
Robert Knox, 38, Harley Street, W1.Afghan war scars
Sir, The letter from former senior
officers (Mar 5) and your leading
article rightly insist that any peace
deal in Afghanistan protects hard-
won democratic and social gains. If
we are to be true to the memory of
those who served, though, we must
include in our special care our former
Afghan interpreters, who shared
many of the operational risks but did
not leave when the bulk of our forces
did. Some have been murdered by the
Taliban, many more driven from their
homes. Even for those who have
achieved sanctuary in the UK, there
are long delays in processing family
visas; interpreters struggle to find
secure housing and employment and
to maintain their physical and mental
health. They must be looked after.
Colonel (ret’d) Simon Diggins
Defence attaché, Kabul 2008-10