Parking charges at Eastrop Park

Dear Editior,

I read last week’s article about parking charges at Eastrop Park with concern (Cllr defends Eastrop parking charges plan – page 7, August 5, 2021).

The council has now confessed, what many already suspected, that it is a revenue raising exercise. The kicker is that the revenue is not even earmarked for investment in Eastrop Park but is a general contribution to the borough grounds maintenance budget.

The good news here is that Eastrop Park costs just £70,000 per year to run. That is an absolute bargain for a park of its size and quality. Hats off to the (only two?) grounds-people that clearly work very hard to maintain the park.

If Basingstoke parks are so cheap to run, why do we need to pay for parking to subsidise their costs? Instead, we want more great parks with similarly low annual running costs, please.

Parks will always cost money to run but are already paid for by residents’ council tax, or are they? When a developer builds houses in a ward like Norden (where I live), and they cannot provide enough green space, they instead pay the council money towards grounds maintenance elsewhere in the borough.

We have all seen the state of our roadsides, paths and verges this year. So is this money really being reinvested like it should and like developers have been led to believe?

Perhaps it will all be explained in the grand ‘vision for the future of Eastrop Park’ in the forthcoming East of Basingstoke Natural Environment Management Plan.

One suspects that this vision comprises a toxic combination of parking charges and locked gates that close before dusk (eg - Crabtree Plantation and Lime Pits), further restricting access to our green spaces.

This is contrary to what we should be doing post-pandemic, which is encouraging people outside to exercise and soak up the mental health and wellbeing benefits of green space.

This plan is for the east – or does Cllr Eachus who represents Kempshott and Buckskin plan to give the green light to similar parking charges closer to home in our proposed new country park at Manydown?

Why wasn’t the council more open and honest with residents from the start? How many similar parking schemes have been pushed through with such lip-service consultation by the council?

I have yet to meet a resident that thinks parking charges at parks are a good idea. Is it too late for this flawed decision at Eastrop Park to be overturned?

Paul Basham, Cromwell Road

Case of missing plaque

Dear Editor,

One of our plaques is missing. Can you help us find it?

In 1999 Basingstoke Heritage Society put a plaque onto the wall of the small building (boiler house) of St Michael’s Church, opposite the west door. The plaque noted that in 1618, Sir James Lancaster had founded a petty school close to the site. The plaque disappeared in June/July this year.

If anyone can help, we would like to hear from you.

There is a possibility that the persons who removed the plaque associated the mention of the East India Company with ‘British Empire’ and seen our plaque as unworthy.

If this is the case, then please can we have a discussion about this? Lancaster was part of the very early years of the East India Company, the beginnings of trade to the east for pepper and spices.

Lancaster sound is named after him as the company sought to find the NW passage north of Canada to find a route to the east and avoid conflict with Spain and Portugal.

Lancaster’s gifts to the town and to Kingsclere included bread, gowns, gifts for the poor and two properties which later benefitted the town.

Please help us find our plaque.

Debbie Reavell, secretary, Basingstoke Heritage Society

Visit Pamber Priory

Dear Editor,

I want to bring your attention to the Pamber Priory, which lies about five miles north of Basingstoke just off the A340 on the way to Tadley – as you approach the Queen’s College Arms look across the field to the left. When William conquered England in 1066 he rewarded one of his main supporters, Hugh de Port, with 55 settlements (mainly in Hampshire) and Bishop Odo gave him another 13 settlements. Hugh de Port created his main home at Basing.

Pamber Priory was founded by Henry de Port, son of Hugh, who was Baron of the Exchequer to King Henry I (reigned 1100 to 1135) and it was consecrated in 1128 by Bishop Giffard of Winchester (then the capital of England). Pamber Priory was strategically located about halfway between Winchester and Windsor (the military HQ) and provided a convenient stopover location.

It was probably used by King Henry II when he was having a large hunting lodge being built near Hannington but there is no documentary confirmation.

However it was used regularly by King Henry III (reigned 1216-1272), there are several records of him stopping there; and for example there is a record in October 1248 of the King instructing his vintner in Southampton to send a tun of wine to the Queen (Eleanor of Provence) at Pamber Priory and, in May 1249, the King gave permission to fell an oak tree in Pamber Forest (a Royal Hunting Reserve) to make the windows of the Queen’s accommodation being provided there.

When Edward I became King in 1272 southern England was safe and quiet so his interests lay in Wales and Scotland and Pamber Priory lost its royal patronage and started to decline. The Great European Famine of 1315 to about 1320 caused huge economic damage and, later, the Black Death of 1347/8 led to the death of about one third of the population - by this time Pamber Priory was in a very poor state.

King Henry VI instructed that a college should be built to provide an educated elite able to govern the country. In 1441 Eton College was completed. By 1451 those running Eton College went to the King complainind that financially they were unable to continue to run the College, so King Henry VI gave to the College Modbury Priory, Whitchurch Manor and Pamber Priory.

Officials from Eton College ejected the Prior and the monks and set about asset stripping and there must have been quite a quantity of valuable items after such a long period of royal patronage. When all the removable items had gone they then started demolishing the buildings, selling the materials off for building materials (timber and stone), road material and fuel for fires until about 85 per cent of the Priory had gone.

King Edward IV came to the throne in 1460 and was totally opposed to King Henry VI. The local populace appealed to the new King that where their forbears had been christened. married and buried for generations the Priory had been totally desecrated. King Edward IV took the Priory away from Eton College and, effectively, gave it to The Queen’s College in Oxford with the instruction to restore to a usable state. Queen’s had a huge job in filling up the great voids and making the remains weatherproof - this they completed and in 1474 the Priory was consecrated as a church. As a church it was no longer a monastic establishment and was safe from King Henry VIII’s depredations some 60 years later.

Pamber Priory remains as a church where services are held (usually once or twice each month); we have to keep it locked as it is in a very isolated location and could be misused.

David Cullum, Basingstoke

Government not concerned

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to a letter published in the Basingstoke Gazette on July 22, 2021 (‘Problematic Election Bill, page 16).

The writer fears for democracy in Britain; but I’m afraid it’s too late.

Having been elected by only 44 per cent of the voters – thanks to our antiquated electoral system – Boris Johnson wants to keep the Tories ruling the country, without interference from the courts or from a sort-of-democratically-elected parliament. And, regrettably, many Tory MPs are prepared to support him; after all, who wouldn’t want to keep a well-paid tax-payer-funded job for as long as possible?

It’s quite clear that Tory Government policies are aimed at benefitting the Tory Party, even though it represents only a minority of the people.

And the government is not the slightest bit concerned about ordinary people. In the House of Lords an amendment was added to the recent Finance Bill to help people trapped on high-interest-rate loans following a previous Tory Government’s incompetent sell-off of the former Northern Rock Mortgages. The amendment was passed in the Lords; but it was defeated by Tory MPs in the Commons.

There’s absolutely no point in writing to Tory MPs about your fears for democracy. Because, to advance their careers in politics, they have to give unquestioning obedience to their leader.

Name and address supplied