Royal Mail
The problem with Royal Mail (County Standard 15 December) is not simply that they are failing to fulfil their legal requirement to deliver letters 6 days a week. It is that they are actively seeking to avoid any public scrutiny of this. Two months ago I submitted a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to Royal Mail asking how many streets on Mersea Island had not received their daily postal delivery in the last six months. I received an almost immediate response from someone at Royal Mail who appeared to be employed solely to tell people like me that Royal Mail was not legally required to respond to FoI requests. He suggested I ask Royal Mail’s customer services – which I immediately did – and have never received a reply.
​Sir Bernard Jenkin MP has now kindly put down some written questions in Parliament on the subject. I have also had several conversations with a number of national newspapers including the Sunday Times. They are currently running a major national investigation of the issue after being tipped off by concerned posties that Royal Mail is breaking the law by telling them to de-prioritise letter deliveries so that they can better compete with parcel delivery companies.
For the record, Royal Mail were last month fined £5.6 million by the regulator Ofcom for failing to meet their target of delivering 99.9% of streets on time last year. They were also supposed to deliver 93% of first class mail the next day. Colchester’s delivery office only managed to deliver 71%.
However, I still have one major question I would like Colchester delivery office to answer. Six weeks ago, the bank sent me two important letters posted 3 days apart – neither have ever arrived.  So, simple question – is there a bag of mail for Mersea Island still sitting in the Colchester delivery office – or alternatively is mail being stolen? Either way, Royal Mail senior managers have a moral duty to the public to let us know what is happening.
Dr Martin Parsons
West Mersea

Sea defence
​
Ian Clarke’s article (Courier 5 December) on sea defence makes some excellent points. Sea level rise will indeed mean erosion rates increase as the underlying clay at the base of our cliffs loses its strength whenever it gets wet causing the overlying sandy crag cliffs to collapse.
Unfortunately, as Mersea Island is the only part of the coast in Colchester City Council’s area, it is clearly not a priority. However, the real decision-making power lies with the Environment Agency. That situation was made worse by the 2010 Flood and Water Management Act rushed through parliament without proper scrutiny in the last weeks of Gordon’ Brown’s government. This gave sweeping powers to the Environment Agency, even allowing them to create coastal erosion or flooding for a wide range of reasons.
When it came into effect I was a district councillor for an area of the Suffolk coast which had very similar erosion issues to Mersea. A local farmer who was losing several acres of land to erosion each year offered to pay up to £200,000 for sea defences, but was not allowed to do so by the Environment Agency. When, as his local councillor, I challenged them on this, the Environment Agency replied that they actually wanted the farmer’s land to erode in order to provide sediment for a beach a few miles south. They seemed not to understand that it was the farmer’s land – not theirs! When I pointed out to them that the published scientific research suggested that less than 5% of eroded sediment ended up on nearby beaches, they responded “Yes we accept that point – but we still want that sediment for the beach down the coast”. Eventually, I managed to get a letter personally signed by a government minister stating that there was “no objection in principle” to sea defence works being constructed on that small section of coast.
It is clear that the whole process by which decisions are made affecting sea defence needs urgent reform.
Dr Martin Parsons
​West Mersea

​Councillor King’s letter
The letter from Colchester Council leader, David King (letters 21 July) somewhat misses the point in my letter (14 July) when he claims that removing the St Botolph’s roundabout will only add one minute to “peak journey times” for those travelling from Mersea and nearby areas.
Even if that were true, the biggest challenge facing Colchester is how to maintain a thriving city centre when most of the large chain stores which attract shoppers have moved out to Stanway, leaving independent shops struggling. The only credible solution to that is a strategy to attract more shoppers into the city centre from the surrounding rural areas, shoppers who as I earlier pointed out, have a choice of where they shop. However, I can see nothing in either the City Council’s masterplan or Councillor King’s letter which does that.
In fact, if anything - quite the opposite, as a core theme of the council’s masterplan is reducing car travel into Colchester. However, the masterplan, which the council’s consultation describes as a blueprint for “the next 100 years” totally ignores the fact that in 2020 the present government announced a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 7 years’ time (https://tinyurl.com/2p8jdeft). So, in 10-15 years’ time most cars on our local roads will be electric and producing zero emissions.
Being concerned about global climate change is important, but we elect a local council primarily to look after our local area. A city centre which lacks a thriving retail centre is likely to become a run-down environment with vandalism and crime.
Could I suggest that the council looks at Beccles in Suffolk where the fortunes of local independent traders were revived by a major mid-range supermarket being given planning permission to locate near the town centre with a large car park providing 2 hours free parking. It has attracted shoppers into the town from the wider rural area, which has led to many of the towns independent shops now thriving. Something similar would be more likely to breathe life into Colchester’s city centre economy than the current idea in the council’s masterplan of simply building a few hundred car free houses on land near the Town Station.
Colchester has an amazing historical heritage which, with the right vision, could enable it to be a thriving tourist centre like Bath or York, which people visit on city breaks. So, whilst it’s very welcome that the city council masterplan is looking to invest in heritage facilities, this will only work if we have a thriving town centre shopping area, which will require attracting more people into the town centre shops, not less.
Dr Martin Parsons
West Mersea
 

Sir
The plan to get rid St Botolph’s roundabout and discouraging car journeys into Colchester illustrates the basic problem with the Colchester masterplan, which is that it ignores the needs of the surrounding rural areas. Replacing St Botolph’s roundabout with a traffic light controlled junction will almost inevitably create traffic jams on Mersea Road, when currently traffic flows smoothly onto Southway at many times of the day.
The greatest challenge facing Colchester city centre is that we now have two distinct retail areas, one for major chain stores at Stanway and another, which they have largely moved out of, in the city centre. If the small independent shops which make up the bulk of Colchester’s shops are to survive, Colchester City Council needs to encourage more people from the rural areas to come into Colchester – not discourage them.
On Mersea I am sensing that a number of people are now preferring to shop in Maldon rather than Colchester. Both take a similar time to drive to, but Maldon is a pleasanter journey that doesn’t normally end with being stuck in a traffic jam. People have a choice where they shop and Colchester city centre needs the trade from rural areas if it is to survive.
 
Dr Martin Parsons
West Mersea
 

I am sure none of us living on Mersea Island would wish to dampen the joy of our neighbours in Colchester at their town officially re-gaining city status some 1,600 years after the Romans left.
However, can I express the dismay that many on Mersea Island will feel – and I am sure also in the Pyefleet villages of Peldon, Abberton, Langenhoe and Fingringhoe -  that we too have been included in the new city of Colchester. A few weeks before the city’s inauguration ceremony I emailed the council’s chief executive to ask where the boundary between the new city of Colchester and the rest of Colchester borough would be. I was shocked to be told that the entire borough would be included within the new city boundary.
Mersea Island has a long and proud history of independence. We are nine miles south of Colchester with nothing but sea, saltmarsh, open countryside and small rural villages such as Peldon, Langenhoe and Abberton between us and Colchester. Many families have lived on the island not just for generations, but quite literally for centuries. Even in Roman times we were not part of the city of Colchester. When Mersea’s district council was merged with Colchester’s in the 1974 local government reorganisation it was a partnership between the rural areas and the town of Colchester. This will feel to many people more like a takeover.
As I have said, we do not wish to lessen the joy that some of our neighbours in Colchester may feel at becoming a city. But it does need to be said on behalf of those in Mersea and other nearby villages that the price we have been required to pay for that, the imposition of city status on our own rural communities, has been too high.
Dr Martin Parsons
West Mersea

Sir
Could I thank both West Mersea Town Council and the vicar and churchwardens of St Peter and St Paul’s Church for organising the proclamation of the new King’s accession and open-air service of thanksgiving for Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
What we have seen over the past weeks has been the feelings of the ordinary decent people of this country. People who have probably never turned out for a demonstration, but felt that as a mark of respect they should turn out now to honour the memory of HM Queen Elizabeth II. Not only have hundreds of thousands of people across all four nations of the UK travelled large distances to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth, but thousands in our own local area have doubtless attended more local proclamations and services of remembrance and thanksgiving to God for her life, such as we had in West Mersea. That is something that Her Majesty would have been deeply appreciative of.
Standing amongst the large number of people in West Mersea churchyard and the adjacent Green I was reminded of the words of the statesman Edmund Burke (1729-97) that it is our involvement in our own local community that forms the first step in developing a love of our country and national identity. That is something that Mersea does very well indeed.
Dr Martin Parsons
​West Mersea