IAN HART: Please don’t miss the point

PERHAPS I should have a strap-line at the top of this column, please don’t miss the point, as the lead letter in last week’s edition from Mrs Judith Wilson was regarding the issue I’d previously raised about benefits.

As always, I’d like to thank Mrs Wilson for taking the time and trouble to write in, but she has missed the point of what I was saying.

A re-organised benefit system would actually continue to help people, such as Mrs Wilson’s son and daughter-in-law, who through ill health actually need and deserve help.

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My thoughts on the issue remain that until the group of people who appear to do nothing but sponge off the state, knowing how to play the system and working all the loopholes, are stopped and made to, at least, work for some kind of government aid, we will continue to go down a slippery slope.

In her letter, Mrs Wilson suggests I and others of my ilk, whatever that means, should try living with a chronic, painful, progressive disease, before making uneducated comments.

Unfortunately, I find myself in a position where I don’t have to make uneducated comments because my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 1996.

The 24/7 care my dad wanted to give her at home, nearly killed him, so for nearly three years she has resided in Linfield House, a Guild Care home, where she receives some of the best care and attention available in the town.

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Sadly due to her ongoing condition she will never leave there, but with aforementioned levels of care, and the amazing support she has received from the Worthing Parkinson’s Society from day one, she couldn’t be in a better place.

Farce over theatres

Perhaps Worthing Borough Council should commission Sir Brian Rix to write a farce based on the ongoing saga of the state of Worthing Theatres?

At least such a production might actually put bums on seats at one of the venues and make some money, as it’s been revealed that since the council went ‘in house’ with running the theatres in November it’s costing us, the local council taxpayers, £3,000 a day.

It does make you wonder what the whole tendering process of last year was all about, let alone the cost?

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Dare I say it, but should the council bite the bullet, put its hands up and admit it was wrong, and get the locally-based Worthing Theatres Trust to take the whole thing over?

Fuel prices

Fuel pump prices are now at an all-time high, with pressure on the government from certain quarters to slash fuel duty.

Good luck with that one, but perhaps the people of Worthing will have a saving grace on this matter?

When the new Asda is built in Ferring, surely one way of drawing people away from Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s is cheaper petrol?

A local pump price war? I hope so...