YEP Letters: June 15

Check out today's YEP letters
Exterior of Wakefield One.
w315a253Exterior of Wakefield One.
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Exterior of Wakefield One. w315a253

Library is a great asset to the city

Ron Pullan, St John’s, Wakefield

I have been a regular visitor to Wakefield One Library for many years.

I have been able to take advantage of the wide range of literature on offer and ease of access to the internet for research purposes.

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However I particularly want to sing the praises of the staff. Any request for assistance has been met with a cheerful and friendly response.

They are all a credit to the local authority and a great asset to the city.

Park and ride will leave legacy of pollution

Mary Spencer, chair of SPARS (Stop the Park and Ride Stourton)

On my onerous journey to work in Yeadon from south Leeds, I noticed that Leeds Council were advertising leaving your car behind for Clean Air Day on their digital information boards.

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The irony in itself is amusing that a Labour-controlled council has failed to implement any integrated transport policy yet expects local residents and car owners to jump through hoops to play the city’s clean air for the few games. With a national Labour Policy purporting to be for #themany Labour-controlled Leeds continue to work only for the few.

The proposed park and ride scheme in Stourton is great example of ticking boxes to protect the few that live in the city centre but places a huge car park in the middle of a residential area which has the highest morbidity rate for respiratory deaths in Leeds and is ironically located next to a cemetery. Not only with this potentially allowing up to 3000 cars in this residential area but also clogging up the local streets with cars of people like myself who actually work outside the city.

This is the only green site in the area and is the site of south Leeds mining history where nothing has ever been built because of its unsuitability with poor drainage and its soil landfill. This will leave a legacy of pollution for the people of Belle Isle and Hunslet and potentially subsidence of the cemetery and local houses.

Luckily the Labour leader of Leeds City is a local ward councillor and obviously will represent the the interests of the people she purports to represent. How wrong we were. Despite 3,000 signatures she refused to meet the group formed to oppose this monstrosity and instructed highway officials not to meet us either.

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South Leeds has a huge park and ride at Elland Road and another one is not needed. As I drive along Kirkstall Road and through Horsforth and see the bumper to bumper queues battling to get into Leeds without a park and ride in the newly built Kirstall railway station I remember it’s #forthefew and the expense of #themany.

Train system in ‘utter chaos’

Heather Milne, by email

I read your article last week about the train problems and I just wanted to email you about my experience. I moved to Ilkley three months ago, from Leeds city centre.

I work in a village outside of Wakefield and when I first moved here I got the 6.33 train every morning to Kirkstall Forge, where my friend who lives in Kirkstall would pick me up and drive us to our (mutual) place of work.

I knew the timetable change from May 20 would mean the train would leave Ilkley at 6.40 instead of 6.33, but what I didn’t know until the Monday morning (the 21st) was that it would no longer stop at Kirkstall Forge. In fact, from that date, NO trains from Ilkley would stop at Kirkstall Forge any longer. The service to and from Kirkstall Forge on the Ilkley line has been completely scrapped it would seem, without warning.

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This means I now have to get a train to Leeds, then a train to Wakefield, and then finally a bus to the village where I work. My train change at Leeds is tight, but if everything runs on time I have five minutes to get from one platform to the other, which is enough for me. However, delays coming into Leeds (waiting for a platform) and to Wakefield meant that I was late to work three days out of five last week, so I now have to consider getting the 6.02 from Ilkley, making an already early start even earlier.

What has annoyed me most of all is that there was no warning of the change - no announcements at all - and no explanation. Although announcements were made leading up to the timetable change, reminding people that it was coming, no mention was made that Northern were cutting a station entirely from the route. I’ve emailed them to ask why this decision was made but I’ve not had a response yet.

I know people have far worse commuter experiences, and it seems that the whole system is in utter chaos, in so many ways. I regularly hear stories of packed trains and people standing for hours every day because they can never get a seat, and it’s making people’s lives miserable. Commuting by train is fast becoming non-viable for so many. I know I feel that getting a car is the best option for me now.

UK falling apart since Brexit

R Pearson, Leeds 9

Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. A decision based on distortion, misinformation and downright lies about a subject, the EU, that 95% of the public had no idea of how it worked or any benefits that occurred.

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Since that day the country has begun to fall apart piece by piece. Nothing is being done about it.The NHS is being allowed crumble in on itself by planed under funding. The privatised heat and energy companies continue to rip us off. Public transport, both rail and bus services, are an expensive shambles, care for the elderly is virtually non-existent or too expensive.The country is being run on a part time basis, using part time workers and the million or so zero - hours contracts, under the lie of full employment. Thank goodness the myth that pensioners are rolling in money has been laid to rest. The latest figures show that Britain is not a good place to grow old . We have the lowest state pension out of 327 countries in terms of the amount of average earnings. Four million UK households are in fuel poverty, having to choose to heat or eat.

Over the past seven years the proportion of older people unable to afford a decent standard of living has risen from 23 per cent to 32 per cent. £6 billion has been cut from social care budgets inthe last eight years. Austerity is still on going after ten years. Who is paying the price for greed and gluttony of the banks and financial institutions?

Why, according to polls, do 44 per cent of the public support the government?