YEP Letters: October 10

Check out today's YEP letters

Concerns over quiet electric cars?

John Appleyard, by email

From a health point of view it is good to see an increase in the sale of electric cars and a decline in higher polluting powered vehicles.

However in your article ‘Electric revolution is coming to the region’ (YEP October 8) you make the point that some electric cars are very quiet.

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Could this be detrimental to people with poor hearing and sight defects, leading to more accidents and collisions on our roads, particularly among the elderly when crossing roads?

No substitute for a fully-trained doctor

Duncan Long, Netherton.

THE loss of patient satisfaction at obtaining a GP appointment is worrying, not just because it is falling but because of what is being done to address it.

Most patients have never heard of an ‘ANP’ which stands for Advanced Nurse Practitioner.

In an attempt to prop up the lack of qualified and experienced doctors, nurses are being given enhanced roles, titles and salaries which allow them to prescribe and diagnose without necessarily having the qualifications, training, skill or experience to do so safely.

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Worryingly they are also being deployed in hospital units too. This might, at first sight, seem sensible given their lack of experience, but it is experience that is required to pick up on early signs of the most serious conditions that require diagnosing early to survive.

Satisfaction at getting an appointment is being traded against the rise of avoidable deaths.

The next time you actually do get an appointment make sure you check it’s actually a doctor you have seen, not simply an Advanced Nurse Practitioner or a Lead Advanced Nurse Practitioner, the majority of whom have no qualifications other than that of nurse.

Next time you do get an appointment; ask the question – is it actually a doctor you are seeing?

City can’t set business rate

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Tom Stannard, Corporate Director for Regeneration and Economic Growth, Wakefield Council.

WAKEFIELD Council and the Wakefield Business Improvement District (BID) are committed to redeveloping the city and encouraging residents across the district to enjoy retail and leisure opportunities.

We are supporting economic growth in the district and have invested £350,000 into a recently completed Retail Enhancement Fund, which has supported 39 business owners in shopping areas such as Wood Street and Westgate in Wakefield as well as Gillygate in Pontefract and Sagar Street in Castleford.

In August we launched a new Retail and Residential Enhancement Fund. It offers incentives to property owners to renovate ground floor retail space and to transform upper levels to creative attractive residential accommodation.

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This summer we also launched our new economic strategy. It recognises the changing retail environment and incorporates a number of regeneration and business support initiatives.

Business rates are not under the control of the council. They are based on the rateable value, which is calculated by the Government’s Valuation Office Agency, and the national rate poundage which is set annually by central Government and cannot be changed by the council.

End to cap on council homes is common sense

Brian Berry, Chief Executive, Federation of Master Builders.

THE Prime Minister’s announcement that the Government will lift the borrowing cap on councils to allow them to build many more homes is a victory for bold thinking and common sense.

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We believe this could also have the added benefit of expanding the capacity of the private sector by providing more opportunities for SME builders.

In this way, a stronger public sector house building programme can complement and help support a stronger, more diverse private sector.

The private sector will continue to take the lead in delivering new homes, and to ensure it can do so, we need to continue to lay the foundations for the future.

However, as much as this is a bold and praiseworthy move by the Prime Minister, new homes of any sort will not get built if we as an industry don’t have the people we need to build them.

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Recent announcements on post-Brexit immigration rules, if implemented as currently understood, will be a serious threat to our ability to deliver on the promise of this policy.

The failure of the Government so far to listen to the construction industry could unfortunately threaten the delivery of the Government’s increasingly bold moves to solve the housing crisis.

Street clean good dead

A TEENAGER who spent more than an hour clearing up broken glass after vandals smashed three bus shelters on a Leeds street has gone viral on Facebook. A bus driver took a photograph of 16-year-old Alex Davidson after spotting him sweeping up debris at a bus shelter on South Parkway Road on Saturday afternoon. We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media..

Jessie Mullins

Well done, it’s nice to see this young lad doing such a great deed, instead of all the bad.

He should be recognised for this.

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Congratulations and well done to your mum and dad on bringing you up the correct way.

Emma Whitworth

That story has so cheered me up.

Nessa Joy

Well done, the world would be a better place if more kids had these morals.


Louise Shine

We saw this kid cleaning it up too, did a great job.

Lisa Townsley

What a lovely thoughtful thing to do. 
It makes a great change to read something like this about a teenager.

He is a real credit to his parents.

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