YEP letters: Decebmer 19

Will we be left waiting at the bus stop?

Carol Gannon, Flats Lane, Barwick in Elmet

Here we go again, a promise of improvements to bus services in Leeds! We are now informed 90 per cent of services will run at 10 minute frequencies.

Even now those who use services which are supposed to run every few minutes way they are often waiting 20 minutes or longer.

Unfortunately, many of us who have buses that run only once or twice an hour will no doubt be left out in the cold yet again. Recently we have had waits of an hour or longer when more than one bus fails to appear and it has been going on for years, despite promises of improvements.

Unless the service is reliable and actually turns up, then I’m afraid drivers will not be prised from their cars. It is not rocket science. All well and good having a marvellous system within the city centre but plenty travel from further afield into Leeds and it is these people you need to encourage to use public transport.

Yes, park and rides are a good idea, but we needed them twenty or thirty years ago. It is always too little, too late.

I hope the transport system within Leeds and surrounds is sorted out, but I won’t be holding my breath.

Janet Harrison, Morley

Churwell Community Choir would like to extend their thanks to St. Mary’s Church for hosting our Christmas Charity Concert.

The hall is a splendid place to sing and a full house gave it an extra special atmosphere.

The choir also thanks the wonderful people who attended, as they dug deep and gave generously throughout the evening including the tombola, raffle and refreshments, all of which had been donated by the members of the choir.

We are very happy to say we raised £470 for charity, which will be shared between the Air Ambulance, Dementia UK and an important local charity, The Memory Cafe run at St. Mary’s Church here in Morley.

Christmas is about giving and all the people involved did just that.

Film laid some truths bare

Robin Paterson,by email

As a teenager in the mid fifties I remember a discussion at the meal table between my parents. My father had access to military information regarding the testing of nuclear weapons by both the UK and the US. He and his colleagues had been called to a conference.

On his return home he discussed the possibility that I would not reach my 21st birthday as we would all be vaporised in a nuclear attack. Also discussed was the remote chance of survival if we moved to the north of Scotland where the family had a small island croft.

Those words returned to me as I watched the recent film by John Pilger with the provocative title The Coming War on China. Two years in the making Mr Pilger’s film was released nationwide on Monday December 5, followed the next day by ITV. Amazingly there was very little coverage by the press and none by the BBC apart from Radio London. John was propelled into making his film because, quote: “we don’t know, (what the US is up to) and we have a right to know”, and the myopia of the media is ”nothing less than extraordinary”. For the last 50 or more years the United States of America has been constructing a ring of 400 military bases facing the Chinese mainland. Many of these have nuclear capabilities and there has been at least one emergency where missiles came seconds from being fired at China.

If you want to know why China is feeling edgy, then watch this film. Personally I feel the lack of interest by the BBC and other media is deliberately designed to keep is in ignorance of what our so called allies are up to, and has been for years. While we were focussed on the Cuban Crisis of 1962, the US was building missile silos aimed at China. I came out of the film feeling as if I have been completely duped by past governments and also our present leaders, who seem intent on repeating the posturing by the leaders of the nations up to 1914 where provocation was the order of the day. Those provocations led millions to their deaths, and here we are again, led by President elect Donald Trump and his bedfellows, provoking the Chinese and the Russians.

My father was wrong in his timing of my premature demise, but it might still occur. At least I wont be a victim of our collapsing Social Care system.

Sorry for getting old!

Ernest Lundy, by email

We are told that Leeds council tax is to rise by approx. 3.5 per cent for the coming year, due to government cutbacks. Prime minister, Theresa May, in attempting to justify the action of government, says we cannot afford to pay for the increasing number of an ageing population. I wonder if our ageing generation should apologise for becoming such? In a slightly different, but still relevant context, isn’t it the poor who always get the blame? In this case those who are already struggling to pay their dues; which means the majority of the working classes

If we stopped giving handouts to all and sundry in ways which completely mystify those who suffer the consequences of our, alleged, empty coffers, perhaps we could then be able to conform to the old tradition: Charity begins at home; or should. Of course in nine cases out of 10 those who dispose of our reserves so profligately to other nations are fortunate enough not to need any. Is it any wonder therefore, that the man in the street naturally wonders how we manage to do this, when we aren’t supposed to have any?

Pensioners pay for their care

Liz Goodwill, by email

LCC can afford to fund elderly care out of the £6.6million they have made out of parking and bus lane fines. Please don’t tell me they expect we council tax payers to pay for the services they cut? As a further note every person in a “council run home” pays the majority of their worked-for pension, to keep them there so please don’t think they’re charities.

My late father got £15 out of his pension, the rest went to LCC.