GOOD neighbours, my foot!

While accepting that Sue Kipling is possibly one of the best councillors we have enjoyed in Peover for some time, I must take issue with her comment as reported in the Knutsford Guardian January 9 that 'Barclays Bank are good neighbours to the local community.'

A good neighbour is someone who can live alongside without upsetting the life of the community, or creating situations which either inconvenience, irritate or generally annoy others in the neighbourhood.

Having been a householder in Peover for over half a century I well remember the days when Radbroke was a private home surrounded by a beautiful garden and farming land.

It was in fact a delightful part of the Cheshire countryside.

The lanes had little traffic and our roadside hedges abounded with wildlife with wide grass verges providing the opportunity of safety from traffic whether mounted or on foot.

The commercial development of Radbroke would have been better located in an urban area more suited to the enormous development that Barclays obviously envisaged and not in an area of country, which for everyone else seemed to be designated as greenbelt.

The influx of 3,000 bank staff into a rural area devoid of any worthwhile public transport and requiring car parking for 2,500 vehicles was inevitably certain to cause problems to say nothing of the extensive building required to accommodate them.

As a consequence we have a situation where our country lanes each morning and night are inundated with cars travelling at high speed understandably searching for any short cut to speed up their journey.

As a consequence many of the birds from the hedgerows have been slaughtered and much of the grass verge has disappeared beneath an ever-widening strip of tarmac used in an effort to widen the roads.

What is left is more often than not a sea of mud.

If the nightmares of the morning and evening rush are not bad enough it appears that between 10am and 2pm an ever increasing number of people from Radbroke have to go jogging often two and sometimes three abreast, causing at best a hold-up in traffic and at worst a safety hazard.

If Sue Kipling really believes what she says then perhaps she can persuade Barclays Bank to:

1 Make an effort to supply a modicum of buses to and from the major dormitory areas

2 Spend a bit of money on erecting tiered or subterranean facilities and not look to spread over open grassland to meet their car parking requirements and

3 Provide, in the interest of safety, a running track to keep their employees off the roads or for those who won't 'track run' issue a standard uniform which cannot be worse than the wide assortment of unattractive garb they currently display.

In conclusion I wish to point out that the rates Radbroke pay are classified as non-domestic rates and do not go to helping to reduce the charges we residents have to meet.

MICHAEL GILLOW

Peover Heath

Near Knutsford