1800 sign hotel protest petition

 Support for the petition against the construction of a hotel on the former Town Mills site in West Mills, Newbury is growing rapidly.

 Campaign leader, Mrs. Maureen Jobbins, said yesterday that she has 1,800 signatures on the petition which calls for the planning permission granted to the developers to be revoked or amended to prevent the hotel being built. The petition calls for the site to be landscaped and used as a public open space.

 Mrs. Jobbins, a former head girl at Newbury County Girls Grammar School, started the petition after visiting Newbury to see her mother.  She has now returned to her home at Harpenden, Herts, but many local people are still collecting signatures and Mrs. Jobbins hopes to have 3,000 names by April 4.  She is planning to present it to the Mayor of Newbury, Counc. Wilfred Cannings.

 ”Response to the campaign has been tremendously encouraging”, she said,  “The unpopularity of the hotel scheme is obvious from the articulate response from the people to whom I have spoken”.

 Two hundred pupils from Turnpike School have signed the petition and forms are also being completed at other local schools.

 Mrs. Jobbins’ son has even obtained 100 signatures at his school in Harpenden.  The pupils signed because they felt their national heritage was at stake.

 Mrs. Jobbins has received numerous offers of help, including support from architects, councillors, from Newburians, and the Council for the Protection of Rural England.  She has also been given two paintings of West Mills for use in obtaining funds she is considering organising an exhibition and sale.