YEP Letters: November 22

Having some fun with the bus users?

John Turner, Leeds 12

yesterday I was waiting at a bus shelter and looked up at the screen, only to be told that I can go to Lotherton Hall to see some penguins.

Are WY Metro, the Combined Authority and Leeds City Council having some fun with us bus users? The nearest bus towards Lotherton Hall terminates over a mile away.

Are we going to get a bus that actually takes us to Lotherton Hall? Probably not. Can I ask whoever runs these pointless and expensive computer screens to stop taunting us with opportunities to look at captive wildlife when we can’t get there.

Perhaps the huge amount of public money frittered on these screens would be better spent on improving the bus services, so that we don’t feel like the captive wildlife you are obviously so keen we go to see.

A taste of the rush hour train nightmare

Mike Priestley, Bradford.

THE other afternoon, after attending a matinée performance at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, my wife and I congratulated ourselves on making it to the station in time to catch the 5.25pm Skipton train back to Shipley. Our delight turned out to be premature.

With five minutes to go to departure, the rush-hour train was packed. We managed to squeeze ourselves into the crowded square in the section between the doors. Quite a few other people followed.

I have travelled often on the London Underground over the years, but have never been on a train more crammed than this one.

A kindly man battled his way through from one of the seating areas to offer my wife his seat (we are in our 70s) which miraculously wasn’t occupied by someone else by the time she forced her way to it.

I followed, to stand over her holding tightly on to her coat lapel as we moved off for the mercifully brief journey.

There was nothing else to grip on to for support other than the window frame. These trains aren’t built for standing room only.

The number of rails and poles is inadequate. There are no straps to hang on to. Some of the passengers in the section between the doors were reaching up and supporting themselves with their fingertips in the rim of the air conditioning duct in the roof.

Apart from the discomfort of being crammed in like sardines, the atmosphere was unpleasantly stuffy (some people understandably don’t smell too fresh at the end of a long working day).

This is no way to expect passengers to travel, and to pay highly for it into the bargain.

I have every sympathy with those who must endure a daily commute in such conditions. I know of no plans to improve matters in the near future by adding more carriages or increasing the frequency of the trains.

Yet this is happening in a bankrupt country which has embarked on a plan to spend £60bn or more of borrowed money (who knows what the eventual total will be) on the HS2 scheme which in a couple of decades is promised to trim half an hour or so off rail journeys between London and major provincial cities (including Leeds), in the process displacing thousands of people from their homes.

What a strange, mad world of warped priorities we are living in!

Headlines were unwarranted

Chris Gilley and Amanda Addison, Managers, The Lord Darcy, Moortown, Leeds.

last Monday evening we were visited by your Taverner reviewer. I realise that reviews are subjective and we can’t please everyone all the time, but the headline in the paper/online and the consequent fall out it has generated has been unwarranted.

A breakage occurred behind the bar and was being cleaned up by Richard with a brush and pan, not scooped up as it says, towels were put over it to prevent any one slipping.

The reviewer rightly points out that he should have immediately washed his hands, but in his haste to serve a customer he didn’t, not that his hands were dirty.

To say that Richard “doesn’t have the wit to realise” or “hasn’t been trained well” and we “need to re-examine our whole approach to cleanliness” is grossly unfair and very unkind to Richard. It was just an accident.

Same goes for the cleaning bottles that were left after the tables were cleaned, they were only washing-up-liquid and water, yes they shouldn’t have been there but it’s not something to get upset about.

It goes on to say “ once the barman has sufficiently cleansed himself to catering standards” he is served. This wasn’t true because I then served him and not Richard, I recall making a comment about the Three Swords being one of my favourite beers and I wasn’t the one who cleaned the mess up which kind of negates his whole rant.

The review then goes on to say after all the negative stuff “our evening was pulled up from the gutter by some attentive service, some great beer and some hearty wholesome pub food”.

You wouldn’t have guessed it from the headlines though and most people wouldn’t have even got to that bit before making a judgement about us.

Just because we are part of a big company it doesn’t mean we care any less or don’t take pride in what we do.

We sell more beers from independent Yorkshire brewers than anything else always having at least four or five on at once.

If the reviewer had looked in front of him instead of obsessing about a broken glass he would have noticed our fantastic gin collection again featuring at least 10 Yorkshire ones, but no mention of this.

We love championing Yorkshire products when we can.

We raise money for Macmillan Cancer, recently held a Comedy Night raising hundreds of pounds for St Gemma’s and are helping a homeless charity at Christmas, we try and use our position in the community for positive things.

Get round the table and talk

Richard Walker, Tollerton, North Yorkshire.

WE have much to be proud of being a united Yorkshire, but I fear the Government is bent on wanting to break us up by offering a bribe to the people of South Yorkshire, simply to take away Yorkshire’s clout.

We only have to look at directives surrounding the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ and the ‘electrification’ of the railway between Leeds and Manchester; once South Yorkshire signs on the dotted line the damage will be done, funding will be pulled and promises broken, leading to a disjointed Yorkshire with no clout and no trust. Council leaders throughout Yorkshire should get round the table as a matter of urgency, forget their differences, put politics on the back burner and deliver for the people of a united Yorkshire before it’s too late.