The County Standard is absolutely right – we do have a crisis on Mersea, with some people unable to register with a GP. This is due to the island’s only surgery stating they do not feel they can safely take on any new patients due to the increase in patients already resulting from recent housing developments on the island.
However, there is a lot of hard work which has been going on behind the scenes to try to find a solution to this. Sir Bernard Jenkin MP has long been in discussions with the Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board who are responsible for local primary health care, to try to get then to resolve this, as well as meeting with the GPs themselves.
While in October, as local councillors we wrote to the Heath Secretary, Wes Streeting explaining the situation on Mersea and asking him both to urgently address the issue and also to meet with Angela Rayner, the Housing Secretary asking her to exempt areas without GP access from the government’s new house building targets. Whilst we have yet to receive a reply, Sir Bernard Jenkin MP is seeking to ensure we get one!
The 1944 NHS White Paper produced by Churchill’s wartime government, which became the blueprint for the creation of the NHS, set out a basic principle of everyone having free access to GPs at the point of need. That is now no longer available to everyone on Mersea. That is why, as Mersea councillors we have written to the Health Secretary, asking him to intervene.
Councillor Robert Davidson
Councillor Martin Parsons
Councillor Carl Powling
County Councillor John Jowers
 

The government’s imposition of 20% inheritance tax threatens to bankrupt farmers, wreck the rural economy, put up the price of food and cause immeasurable environmental damage. Most farmers earn very little despite working 60-80 hours a week. So, every time a farmer dies – their family will have to sell 20% of the farmland just to pay inheritance tax.
At the moment half of all farmland sold goes to property speculators who want to build large housing estates. So, each generation we will have to import more and more food from abroad. And because farms have been passed from one generation to the next, hedgerows have often existed for centuries – and so are incredibly important habitats. However, the first thing developers will do is rip up the hedgerows – as they are more likely to get planning permission without them.
So, if anyone thinks putting inheritance tax on farmers won’t affect you personally – let me invite you to come to Mersea and look from the hill above the Strood at the glorious countryside towards Abberton/Langenhoe and Fingringhoe; or perhaps start at Tiptree and as you come down the hill experience the glorious view towards the Backwater estuary… now imagine 20% of that covered in housing, then a generation later another 20%....
We have inherited this area as a trust to conserve and pass onto future generations. That’s why this ill-thought-out tax has to be reversed. Kemi Badenoch has promised to do so if the Conservatives win the next general election. But it would be much better if the present Labour government could just admit they got it wrong, so we didn’t have to wait 4 more years to do so.
I’m not a farmer – but please sign the National Farmers Union petition to ‘stop the family farm tax’ (https://tinyurl.com/ew9nwbut)
 
Dr Martin Parsons
Colchester City Councillor for Mersea and Pyefleet
 

Colchester City Council’s strategic plan 2023-26 states that its first priority is to ‘respond to the climate emergency’. However, its list of actions fails to even mention the effects of sea level rise on our area. This is despite the UK government’s Foresight report  stating that sea level rise is “one of the top four priority risks for the UK Government.”
Ahead of last week’s council meeting I submitted a question to the leader of the council, Councillor David King, asking him to commit to urgently reviewing whether the Council’s current strategic plan should be revised to include the local effects of sea level rise and coastal erosion, and report back to the council later this year. His response was that he didn’t feel it was appropriate to do so…!
Local sea level has already risen by around 30cm since 1900 and is currently rising at 4mm a year, with the UK’s Climate Change Committee expecting this to significantly increase in the next 25 years. While recent research has suggested that this may lead to coastal erosion rates increasing by between 3 and 7 times.
Councillor King’s refusal to even consider reviewing the issue therefore displays an extraordinary lack of concern by the current Lib-Dem leadership of Colchester City Council for one of the most urgent issues affecting our local area. Indeed, not only have I previously raised the issue at a recent council meeting, but two years ago the BBC reported that research by the University of East Anglia had shown the council areas around the Blackwater estuary were among those most at risk in the UK from sea level rise over the next 25 years.
I would therefore urge the current Lib-Dem leadership of Colchester City Council to urgently review their position on this.
 
Dr Martin Parsons
Colchester City Councillor for Mersea and Pyefleet ward (Cons)
 

Ahead of Colchester City Council’s July meeting I submitted a written question asking Councillor David King, the Leader of the Council to explain why, when the Council’s first priority in its strategic plan is to ‘respond to the climate emergency’, that plan makes no reference at all to the impact on our local area of rising sea levels and associated issues such as increasing coastal erosion.
In fact, across then UK sea levels have risen by nearly 30cm since 1900. The mid-range projections from the UK’s Climate Change Committee suggest UK sea levels will rise by a similar amount over the next 25 years – as slightly warmer sea water takes up a bigger volume.
This is not something that only climate scientists have been aware of. Two years ago the BBC ran a major story on research from the University of East Anglia which found the local council areas which would be most affected by rising sea levels over the next 25 years included those in Tendring and the Blackwater Estuary.
Nor is this simply an issue which affects Mersea and Pyefleet which I have the privilege to represent. It also directly affects residents and businesses in places such as Rowhedge and Wivenhoe.
Sea level rise, which is currently around 3mm a year but increasing, doesn’t just mean that we need better flood defences. It also impacts a whole range of areas Colchester City Council is responsible for including house building, planning and sea defence.
It is therefore imperative that Colchester City Council works together to get up to speed on this issue as quickly as possible.
After all, the primary responsibility of the local council is to look after our local area and its people.
Dr Martin Parsons
Councillor for Mersea and Pyefleet (Cons) 

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