YEP Letters: December 19

NHS can’t see wood for trees

With NHS bed levels at 98.5 per cent in Leeds it’s is sad to see the slow closure that is happening to Seacroft Hospital selling off vital land for housing development knocking down wards etc.

The NHS can’t see the wood for the trees? With the consultation (done deal), for all the new housing to be built in east Leeds, where is the extra bed capacity going to come from? The LGI and Jimmy’s are at bursting point and both places are a pig to get to. Plus no parking, that why some of the staff are bused in.

Seacroft is the ideal site to expand, due to the massive amount of extra housing that is going to be built in east Leeds. It’s on the A64 it has a railway line at the rear. In years to come we might get a station there. Will this happen? No, because the NHS is making big money selling off your assets and in the next ten years they will spend mega bucks on buying a green field site to build a new hospital that they already have, and it’s your money they are spending.

Leeds is lagging behind some smaller cities

Harry Underhill, Leeds 16

Whilst it is good news that Leeds City Council (LCC) is to push for its own conference centre, as usual LCC are decades behind the times.

Leeds is the third largest city in the UK (720,000 population), yet to its shame it lags behind many other smaller cities in the services and facilities it provides and offers to visitors.

Yes, we have now at last got a excellent arena, but unlike cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham etc, we have no city tram/lightrail system, we have no designated concert hall, and only just developing additional park and ride services around the perimeter of the city.

If the European City of Culture bid is allowed to go ahead, then at least a concert hall should be high on the priorities, before more inner city land is devoured by offices, which often seem to have large ‘vacant space available’ signs on them.

An ideal opportunity to develop the cultural quarter at Quarry Hill with a designated concert hall, was lost, with the current office, and residential buildings now being built on the site.

‘Misdirection’ of the church

Martin J Phillips, Leeds 16

if the Church of England think that money can help to increase the dwinding congregations in their Leeds’ churches, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

The reason people are leaving the Church of England in droves is their departure from following the teachings of Christ as clearly laid out in Scripture. The Church of England has instead adopted a policy of following the teachings of ‘political correctness’.

I know of nearly 40 independent churches in Leeds (there are probably more) that have been established at least in-part because of the mis-direction the Church of England has taken.

City is swamped with bars

Edna Levi, by email

I AM by all means not a killjoy and everyone should enjoy themselves, but regularly it is reported in the Yorkshire Evening Post that yet  another bar is opening in Leeds.

The city seems to be swamped with them. In fact one can only wonder how they all survive.

At the other end of the scale small shopkeepers are not surviving because of the competition from the big department stores coming to the city.

It is said Leeds is a thriving city but perhaps it should slow down a little and let us have some memories of just a few years ago.

No inferiority complex

D Angood, by email

Once again Michael Meadowcroft answers the reason why those who voted leave did so in his letter (December 15).

The UK he believes is capable of being a highly effective and influential member of the EU. The Brexiteers however do not have an inferiority complex just a belief in the history of just how effective an influential a member of the EU the UK has been. Previous governments of all colours have been that influential and effective in seeing our fishing industry decimated, our manufacturing base sorely diminished (e.g.new trains for our railways are being built in Spain), our farmers, once so effective are hamstrung by EU regulations, must I go on? Maybe he is not continually descrying everything British but neither is he advocating supporting the deliberations of Brexit to the benefit of the UK.

Spend money on care homes

Jaimes Lewis Moran, Member of Leeds Green Party

Quite a lot has been said about our underfunded military powers, yet how about this as an alternative spending proposal.

Instead of buying the next shiny model of fighter plane stick to our existing ones; and then spend this money on building and funding more care homes instead? This would be a very reasonable spending choice for a cash-strapped government. After all, there’s quite a few aging veterans out there who certainly deserve the highest of our care and treatment.

Give cash to NHS not the banks

A Hague, Leeds 9

PHILIP Hammond is giving the National Health Service £2.8 billion over the next two years but cut banking taxes by £4.4 billion. The health service needs £8 billion yet preference has gone to the bankers tax on bank debt. Prescriptions and routine operations face cuts because of not enough money and shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it’s shameful we get large handouts for banks when care services cry out for more to cope.