Blessing or not?

HOW lucky we all are, with Mr Rowley pledging £1million for a leisure facility in St Neots and Mr Thornhill stumping up £200,000 of his own money for the Diddington junction improvements. We must be the envy of the rest of East Anglia.

But wait, Mr Rowley will give the £1million only if it is spent on a cinema and he has already given £152k of this sum away to other charities. How can St Neots Town Council attract serious interest from cinema operators if they can't guarantee what level of subsidy they will receive? I use the word subsidy as I can see this cinema becoming a millstone around the council's neck.

This £1million pledge represents a couple of acres of the land that Mr Rowley sold - don't forget the hundreds of other acres sat in his bank. Our town will now be saddled with an increase in population that the current infrastructure can't cope with while Mr Rowley will sleep soundly in his New York bed with a clear conscience.

I also hear, with further dismay, that a local councillor is proposing to spend £4,500 of the town council's money on a cinema consultant. If a viable and profitable cinema in St Neots is a reality, the town council should be beating cinema operators off with a stick, not using its own limited funds in a desperate bid to keep Mr Rowley happy.

Meanwhile, on the A1 at Diddington, Mr Thornhill is using £200,000 of his own money to improve the junction. Has anybody asked what the real reasons for these improvements are? The safety of the village residents is championed but what about the future further expansion of the quarry to the rear of the village and the royalties Mr Thornhill would be due?

Any planning application is likely to be looked upon in a more favourable light if access for the thousands of lorries is already in place.

NIGEL GREEN, Great North Road, Eaton Socon