YEP Letters: May 16

Hospital building too good to lose

AE Hague, Leeds 9

WHEN reading that Queen Elizabeth Grammar School say they will buy the old Clayton Hospital (Wakefield) and knock it 
down and build a swimming pool, I thought it must be at least a grade II listed building, so protected, as it’s marvellous in design and quality.

Our heritage must step in and get it listed as it is too good a building for Wakefield and the rest of Yorkshire to lose.

Action needed to overcome congestion

Mark Parry, Campaign for better Trsnport West and North Yorkshire

Although we are disappointed that yet again Leeds will not be able to develop its urban transit because of the cancellation of the Trolley Bus Project, we hope we can now revert to a light rail project which will be of the quality we expect and deserve in our more densely used traffic corridors.

We urgently need to overcome the delays caused by traffic congestion in urban Leeds if it is to perform well as part of the Northern Powerhouse.

We also need to integrate our public transport more effectively through a quality partnership which would help facilitate the integration of bus, rail and non-motorised transport.

Improved light rail connectivity throughout the West Yorkshire conurbation, simplified zonal fares and tickets, and sound demand management needs serious pursuit.

Road legal mobility scooters

Peter Thorpe, Leeds 14

On Friday morning I was driving down Church Lane in Manston on my ‘road legal’ mobility scooter, when a woman driver passed me in a white car.

She shouted at me to “get off the road!” I would like to point out and educate this woman if she happens to read this letter, that I am perfectly entitled to drive on the road as the scooter is one that can move at eight miles per hour and is insured for the road. It is, as all the scooters of this type are, registered with the Department of Transport.

I have been a driver for 40 years both in my employment and for pleasure but gave my car up and instead obtained a scooter. I do hope that this woman, whoever she is, never has mobility problems, she might then understand how stupid and arrogant her unwelcome remark was. It’s a pity she could not stop and speak to me, I would then have pointed out to her in no uncertain terms the error of her stupidity shouting at me.

I do use the pavement some of the time, but find it rather difficult trying to drive around some of the four by four ignorant drivers who simply park their vehicles on the pavement wherever they like without a care for pedestrians and those with scooters, wheelchairs and baby carriages, not to mention the ‘craters’ that are destroying our roads and pavements in certain areas of this city. The sooner the law is actually enforced to stop selfish drivers abandoning their vehicles the better. Wheelie bins are a menace too blocking pavements, perhaps I should take up jousting with my walking stick and knock them out of the way as I try to drive around them?

People of UK are suffering

N Bywater, Morley

The Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney has given its starkest warning yet that a UK vote to leave the EU could hit the economy.

Mark Carney warned that the risks of leaving “could possibly include a technical recession”. We already have almost stagnation; in 2015, the UK’s current account deficit was £96.2bn, how much worse can the balance in trade get?

Official UK CPI Inflation continues to hover just slightly above 0 per cent, which is very close to stagnation, way off the Bank of England’s target of two per cent.

With a poor 1.6 per cent GDP growth, most of that 1.6 per cent is as a result of the UK population is increasing at the rate of around one per cent per year, so in capital terms it means most people are actually going to feel poorer.

The UK economy only continues to grow because of high house prices and immigration, but in reality, that means the people of the UK are suffering.

Life was better before EU

Mrs J Green, Crossgates

Thank you Ernest Lundy for your excellent letter (YEP, May 12) about the Remain brigade’s scare tactics, they seem to be resorting to almost dirty tricks to convince the electorate to remain in Europe.

I haven’t heard a sensible response from anyone giving us any reason why we should want to be ruled by Germany and France with the attendant problems of immigration, border security and the huge amounts we have to pay as a member of this unaccountable organisation with its ridiculous rules and regulations.

It seems almost what I believe Communism will be like, I think we will only become more controlled if we Remain.

As leader of the Conservative party David Cameron has not made a fair representation of this important event in the future of our country.

He has shown no impartiality, except to display a bullying attitude, treating us all as idiots, using our money to put forward his aims.

Well I can remember life before the EU and it was much pleasanter! If sense prevails and we do finally break with the EU, what plans are there for our emergence as a free independent country?

That is what I want to hear. Yes, laws must be passed but hopefully trade and our industries can be rebuilt quickly, and our self-respect regained, instead of being led like donkeys to this continual drudgery in the gulag.

Thanks for assistance

JM Wainwright, Leeds 15

I would like to thank the two gentlemen and the lady who came to my assistance on Sunday 8 May at 11pm, when I fell over on Selby Road, Halton.

Thanks to their assistance in ringing for an ambulance, I 
was treated and discharged at A&E, St James and am getting better.

Beer mat masterpieces

JR Mollett, Leeds 8

IN your picture archive (YEP, May 4) you featured hobbies 
of the past and included a shot of beermats being prepared for a British Beermat Collectors’ Society auction in 1983.

Collectors of such items – just as with stamps, coins, cheese labels, matchbox covers, etc. still enjoy much pleasure from building up their collections, and anyone interested in beermats may like to know that the Beermat Collectors’ Society is still very much in existence, with a current membership of around 1,800 and still accepting new members – you should contact the membership secretary at 69 Dunnington Avenue, Kidderminster DY10 2YT. And no, not all are of “a certain age”.

They also have facilities for acquiring collections of old beermats no longer required by former collectors, and still hold auctions of mats at various locations throughout the country, the proceeds of which go to charities; it is a non-profit-making organisation.

Having collected beermats myself since 1958 and learned a great deal from many of these little masterpieces of advertising over the years, I can assure you there is still much interest in the subject.

It is certainly not consigned to the past as your archive article might suggest!

A big thank you

RG Haigh, address supplied

A very big thank you to the person who handed my wife’s handbag in to the driver of the 33A bus to Otley on Saturday 23 April.

We retrieved the handbag all intact from the lost property offices in Hunslet

Thanks again to all the honest people involved.