Once again events overtake me,

The County Council held an exhibition in the town about the governments housing proposals.

This week the government announced that over 76,000 asylum seekers came into the country last year. This is equal to three towns the size of Berkhamsted.

The Dublin agreement on asylum seekers states that they have to request asylum in the first country they come to.

Now, most come from France, Belgium and Holland. All of which are part of a European Community this government would love us to become part of.

Have I missed something?  

Once again events overtake me,

I’m not sure whether they've got it in for me, or they read this column.

Everything I seems to get my teeth into, some minister or the other picks it up and makes some pronouncement on television or in the press.

Remember, you heard it hear first.

About the dome - now the ‘preferred’ bidder has been thrown off the list, some French geezer has a brilliant idea. The government is supposed to rent the site to his cronies at a peppercorn rent and then lend them the money to develop it. I may have got it wrong, but it seems a super idea. Perhaps our Town Council could do a similar thing for all it’s plans.

The latest ‘consultation’, is whether or not to build a path to the Velvet Lawn play area as the kids get muddy feet when it rains, or to move the play area to either adjacent to the car park (kids don't drive - Cllr Sharpe once said about skateboard facilities) or adjacent to the existing footpath next to the gardens in Chestnut Drive.

The money would actually be better spent installing drainage across the whole open space, add/replace the missing seating. Installing a footpath would actually cost more money in the long term, who remembers the footpath that went right round the ‘moor’ (including the paddling pool?) and the one that linked Victoria School to the footpath alongside the girls school in Butts Meadow. Both still exist under the mud and grass.

Finally, The Berkhamsted Citizens Association will be holding it’s AGM together with the Environment Awards for 2000 towards the end of March, all are welcome and if you join, you can vote for those who stand for election on the committee. If you join at least 24 hours earlier, you can join the committee and have a positive input in the towns affairs. In fact your first act could be to appoint a decent editor for their newsletter.   

Let me have your views on this or any other subject you wish to bring up.