YEP Letters: May 28

Singing star’s Seacroft date

Mavis Harrison, LS9

IT’s not ‘a rumour’ (Neil’s Hudson’s article, May 23) - Engelbert Humperdink certainly appeared at a nightclub at the Seacroft Centre.

I saw him there and when I saw his name on a large banner at the entry to the 
club I thought he must have been an opera singer! I also saw Bob Monkhouse there.

My husband got Engelbert’s autograph on a cigarette packet - in the gents’ toilet.

Clinic campaign continues until it is restored

Dawn Stocks (The Friends of Garforth Clinic); Coun Sarah Field; Coun Mark Dobson, Garforth

We wish to respond to the article published in the YEP on May 25, regarding our recent Day of Action at Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, following the closure of Garforth Clinic.

We are grateful to the YEP for helping us keep our campaign in the public eye.

Following our demonstration outside LCH HQ in Headingley, we were invited to discuss the matter with its CEO, Thea Stein. While this was a courteous and productive meeting, and there was an agreement not to dispose of the clinic until all our concerns are addressed, there are still areas of significant disagreement.

We firmly believe the original consultation was flawed and should be run again, as there was an admission by LCH that it was unaware of all the user groups which use the clinic. Indeed one group had been meeting weekly for 40 years, about which LCH had no knowledge. Under such circumstances our contention is that this must be rerun accurately, thoroughly and without a predetermined outcome.

Garforth will inevitably grow over the coming years due to Government-imposed housing targets, therefore it seems shortsighted and ill-advised to remove services rather than retain and expand them.

We sympathise with LCH NHS Trust, whose budgets have been decimated by Government cuts, but we still think a significant number of services should be added to the clinic to make the facility both financially and operatively viable. We left a clear message with Leeds Community Healthcare: we will not rest until this flawed decision has been overturned and our clinic restored. Our campaign will continue until this is achieved.

Which EU does the PM want?

Derek Barker, Moortown

We are told by the EU remain campaigners that the EU Parliament protects the 
rights of workers and safeguards the security of their employment.

But in this country we have people forced to work on zero hours contracts with no guarantee of regular employment while we now have huge numbers of workers in France rioting over the French government’s plan to abolish labour laws which are designed to provide workers with employment security. Which Europe does David Cameron and George Osborn want us to remain in, their fantasy island version of the EU that protects workers rights and provides prosperity and security for all?

Or the real EU which deploys riot police kitted out like storm troopers to quell workers protesting at the erosion of their rights using tear gas and riot batons.

Boris Johnson, as much as the politically correct brigade would rather hang themselves than admit it, is correct.

The hierarchy of the EU are trying to re-create the Roman Empire in which an elite few treat the plebs like sub-humans which is what Napoleon and Hitler tried to do but by means of extreme violence, instead of by stealth which is what has been happening over the past 35 five years.

New store is a monstrosity

A Ward, Leeds 8

I agree wholeheartedly with Ivan Kovacks (YEP Letters, May 27), when he describes the new John Lewis store as horrendous and ugly.

Sitting on the bus at the bottom end of Eastgate, the whole building feels like a huge wall about to collapse onto us.

Also, visitors arriving via the National Express 
Coach Station or those attending the Playhouse will only notice the multi-storey car park stuck onto the side of the building.

Some weeks ago, Dr Kevin Grady of Leeds Civic Trust had objected to the proposal by the store’s owners to erect some sort of illuminated sign on the roof of the building.

This seems a minor point when one considers the monstrosity beneath it and I can’t understand why the Civic Trust didn’t object to the plans before the work started on the building in the first place.

I also agree with other correspondents who dislike the graffiti wall alongside the market.

Scenes representing the history of our great city would have been much better.

Bus manners are a disgrace

J Westerman, by email

I read with great interest a letter you published in the Yorkshire Evening Post on May 27 by Mrs Whitehead. I absolutely agree with her comments, the public transport rules on the buses are a waste of time.

People are always putting their feet in the seats and letting their children climb on them in their shoes and the parents are not always sat with these children.

It’s absolute disgrace.

The other afternoon I was on the bus and an elderly gentleman wanted to sit down on one of the inward facing seats.

A woman on the front facing seat had her bare foot on it.

He continued to sit down on her foot - she soon moved it.

The people that think this 
is acceptable need to think again.

The pram situation is also a nightmare, often they take a space up for an empty push chair and also sit on the front seats with a child on one and the parent on another.

In my day, and still if we have had children with us, if they 
are small we put them on our knee.Parents these days don’t put them on their knee even if an old person needs a seat, it’s absolutely infuriating.

And Mrs whitehead is right about all the rubbish they leave and the smell when they get on with their takeaways.

And yes, I do hope Jayne Dawson did have her tongue in her cheek if she thinks it’s OK for feet on seats.

Morley’s trio of victories

Coun Tom Leadley, Morley North, Leeds City Council

We’ve recently seen a tremendous Morley Borough independent triple success following our convincing victories in the Leeds City Council elections.

Firstly, and least surprisingly, the proposed new Co-op in Gildersome off the Church Street, Street Lane, Town Street mini-roundabout was rejected after a planning appeal.

Gildersome may well need a Co-op but this wasn’t the place for it.

Secondly, it was announced that McDonald’s had failed at their fourth attempt to build a drive-through restaurant at the White Bear in Tingley. Grounds of objection were raised by Morley Town Council and residents, but not by Leeds planning officers who had hoped to avoid the inquiry by granting permission for McDonald’s fifth application last December, so it was very much a Morley victory.

Thirdly, the NGT trolleybus went down; I remember being a lone voice on Leeds City Council when speaking against NGT and its Supertram predecessor.

Eventually the number of Leeds councillors speaking or voting against NGT grew to a couple of dozen or so but, it has to be said, that we in Morley were there first.

Cyclist numbers may be out...

Martin J Phillips, Cookridge

From the article in yesterday’s Yorkshire Evening Post, the suggestion is that the Cycling super-highway between Leeds and Bradford will see an extra 9,000 cycle journeys DAILY on it by 2020.

I would like to suggest that this figure will be out by roughly 8,950 per day.