YEP Letters: May 15

Did pub row play part in rescuing beer?

Malcolm Toft, Silsden.

AS A member for many years of the Brewery History Society and CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale), I was glad to read that Carlsberg is making an effort and returning some of the brewing of Tetley ale back to Leeds.

I hope that the ear-wigging I gave to two of that company’s employees last year may have played a part in the decision. That meeting, at the bar, took place in a former Ind Coope public house a short distance from Leeds Railway Station.

The two men were drinking the Wolverhampton-brewed version of Tetley Bitter. I was most vociferous in condemning the fact that Carlsberg closed the Tetley Brewery and moved the brand out of Leeds.

Buildings are part of Leeds’ cityscape

Mark Jenkinson, by email

As reported, the proposed redevelopment of the Leonardo and Thoresby and Great George Street buildings sounds much more destructive than creative, resulting in an immense and damaging and permanent loss of character and interest.

Planning officers are not fools, and their more accommodating and accepting comments on the developer’s proposals are not stupid, but in this instance it seems to me that the planners are wrong and the serious misgivings of councillors are much nearer the mark, and much nearer what many citizens will feel.

The planners seem to consider these buildings merely in isolation, and thus as individually not much of a loss.

But they are not isolated and individual, they are part of the cityscape of one of the great cities of the industrial revolution. And the peak period of city building arising out of those industrialising upheavals is what gave us these buildings along with much – most, even? – of central Leeds.

Planning officials suggest these buildings do not have “set-piece views” but they are an essential part of the fabric of the whole city centre. In that respect they seem to me like many of the buildings in the great mediaeval and Renaissance centres of Europe.

Individually, they may not often be the focus of great attention, and they could be belittled by unsympathetic developers as “secondary“ or even “minor“, but the fact that they and others like them exist in numbers everywhere is what creates character, whether in Florence or Prague or Krakow – or Leeds.

Developers threatening to knock down some parts of central Prague and alter others on the grounds that they did not have “set-piece views” would disappear under a tsunami of objections.

Councillors are absolutely right to see these buildings as part of our “history” and “heritage”. The proper job of developers is not to see how much they can get away with but to propose developments which retain and support and enhance the good things we already have.

This is perfectly possible. Developers like Urban Splash and Rushbond put a good deal of effort into this and have often managed it pretty well.

Don’t blame the baby boomers

Mick Webb, Leeds

THE BBC keeps telling us that “baby boomers” owned their own homes at the age of 21 – what a load of garbage.

They may have had a mortgage, which in no way is owning a house.

Ask those who had their homes repossessed at the time of negative equity. I know many “baby boomers” who have rented all their lives.

Many of today’s young will do something “baby boomers” never did – inherit property. The young of today should thank their lucky stars they were not the young people who had to fight in the First and Second World Wars.

Before people go to university, they should evaluate the chances of employment when they finish. Obviously, many don’t.

One advantage was “baby boomers” didn’t have idiots telling them what they should expect from life.

These are the same people who, not so long ago, were telling men that the retirement age would come down to 60 for both men and women.

Looking back gives the illusion everything was so simple but we hear a lot about the destination, nothing about the journey.

The one thing certain about life is that it is unpredictable – all you can do is get on with it and treat the doom-and-gloom merchants with a pinch of salt.

Caring about our planet

Denise Marsden, Cookridge

I have just received my magazine, in the post, from the National Trust, bearing the words “Plants not Plastic”. A common enough comment these days, but lo and behold someone has finally done something about it.

The plastic (that we’ve all come to expect) providing the envelope for the magazine and its other contents, was in fact not plastic, but made from potato mash!

Boldly displayed was the advice to put the envelope in the compost! Even if you don’t have a compost, this means that it will biodegrade when it hits the landfill.

Whoopee! Now at last I can put something into the black bin without feeling guilty.

All I can say is well done 
the National Trust, we know they care for our national treasures, but now they’re caring about our planet, and us, to experiment with an alternative to what was once considered one of the “best thing since sliced bread” 
items – the dreaded plastic wrapping.

Personally I’ve started re-using those flimsy veg bags 
you get in supermarkets. I know it’s only a small thing, but every journey starts with one step.

We can grow more potatoes for this replacement for plastic, we can grow more trees to provide more paper.

Is it just greed and lethargy that keeps us from a future where we are all of us actually made of plastic, because that’s what we’ll all be eating?

Half marathon road closures

John Turner, Leeds 12

i see Leeds City Council is incapable of leaving the roads alone to carry traffic as intended.

Yet again there is an ‘event’ for a tiny minority whilst the rest of us suffer the consequences. I speak of the half marathon which you have inflicted on to the roads so the rest of us can’t get around as we’d like. In future could you let people run in a park or around a stadium instead of blocking the roads off? Then we can all enjoy our different pursuits.

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