As you rightly reported (The Gazette, June 23) I was booed, in fact howled down, when I attempted to put the opposite point of view to the meeting at the West View Health Village.
Eight Fleetwood doctors, including my own, had called the meeting effectively to "Save Our Surgeries".
Two of them spoke very forcefully that the proposed new health centre (they wrongly called it a polyclinic) will ruin their practices. It will not. They say traditional connection between doctor and patient will go. It will not.
They say the health centre will take 6,000 patients from them. It will not. Anybody who wishes to remain with his/her doctor will remain, just as now.
The health centre will open 8am until 8pm, seven days a week, staffed by two doctors, a dentist, a chemist and nurses. If I need a doctor at, say, 7pm or Wednesday afternoon, Friday afternoon or at weekend, I will use our health centre. I will NOT have to register with that doctor. I will go back to my own doctor at West View. I will not change. Nor need anyone else if they don't want to.
The new health centre will be an addition to Fleetwood's medical services. No existing services will suffer in any way. Just as Fleetwood Sports College was built with private capital, just as Rossall Hospital was, so will this. In no way does it mean privatisation of the NHS as was suggested at the meeting.
As a politician, it would have been all too easy for me to have jumped on the bandwagon and join the majority. I'm afraid that is not me.
Coun Mark Hamer
Fleetwood

Price war fears over Wetherspoons
As a North West union official representing Licensees Unite (formerly known as the National Association of Licensed House Managers), my members do not want to sell discounted booze at weekends in the town centre as cheap booze relates to excessive binge drinking.
Blackpool police (nightsafe), council and licensees pioneered a protocol of not discounting excessively at the weekends five years ago. This reduced drunkenness and was one of the corner stones of binge drinking.
Price is paramount to bingeing. My worry is, if Wetherspoons' two sites don't take up this protocol, this could lead back to the bad old days of discounting at weekends.
Most town and cities copied Blackpool with not discounting at the weekends in town centres. My company will certainly match wetherspoon's prices and this will be a step back for Blackpool town centre.
The councillors must start consulting with the town's licensees.
Coun Norman Hardy was in the chair when all this started happening, Coun Mitchell is
obviously trying to keep this up and Coun Callow is talking the talk.
I re-iterate that none of our members want to sell cheap alcohol in the town centre. The town centre on Friday and Saturday is a totally different animal to normal surrounding pubs.
Price wars have occurred in Fleetwood, St Annes and South Shore in and around Wetherspoons developments – fact!
This area, where one of the Wetherspoons is going, is a family friendly retail area which will be a credit to the town. So why put a pub there?
I hope I am not proved right in what I think will happen, but 30 years' experience does count.
DAVE DALY
Licensees Unite
Castle Hotel, Central Drive
Blackpool

A wife's thanks for hospital care
My husband was taken into Victoria Hospital on May 17.
I cannot thank everyone enough for the care and attention he received. The ambulance crew, A & E, the doctors, nurses, consultants, everyone who gave him assurance and kindness. Thanks to all the staff on ward 34, their dedication and care for the short time he was in that ward. He was allowed to die in a dignified and peaceful surroundings. Thankyou all.
Barbara Morris
Fredora Avenue, Blackpool.

Joys of jazz
in the resort
It was a joy to be in Blackpool this last weekend.
We booked a "jazz weekend" at the Doric Hotel which featured six in a bar Dixieland Jazz Band and the Mike Lovell Allstars both with Rosie.
On both the Friday and Saturday Mike had a guest piano player up from London, Keith Nichols.
Not only is Keith the best 'stride' piano player in the UK, he has arranged and toured with greats such as Bing Crosby and Buddy Greco and home grown big bands...Pasadena Roof and Midnite Follies Orchestras. A wonderful two days of entertaining jazz.
An added bonus was that Mike was able to keep Keith up on
Sunday as well, to play at their residency the Art Deco Cafe, in Stanley Park. The weather was horrible but the management had to bring extra tables to cope with the large crowd that cam.
All in all what a great weekend and so nice to see jazz being so well played, especially as we have just heard that the Swinging Jazz Party to be held in the Hilton Hotel has been cancelled.
Hope we can do it again in the not too distant future..
Thomas Evans
Hawthorn Drive
Barrow in Furness
Tell us about flooding danger
BEING in the building trade, I have noticed large amounts of work on most of our local substations and exchanges. This work is purely to prevent water/flood ingress and it is vastly expensive.
So if the council is aware or in charge of the work, should they not make the local population aware of the risks also? Do we not deserve fair warning, so we can do what we can to protect ourselves, or is the council keeping to itself public information?
R CARDWELL
Butts Road, Thornton
Well done to stand, Hamish
Three hurrays for Mr Hamish Howitt if he is standing to be an MP. He would make an excellent person to stand up for the downtrodden millions of smokers whom have never been consulted for the government's anti-smoking campaign. Don't tell me it is so difficult to create a smoke room in pubs with strong fans to give smokers their democratic human rights.
This government day by day contravenes the Helsinki human rights accord.
Victor De-nagy
Blackpool