ONCE again the school term has begun. But how many parents are concerned for the safety of their children?

I am not against parents collecting their children from school, but the way they park their cars is a danger to other road users and to the children.

Congestion is terrible in Rose Avenue and Gorse Road, Marsh, and is made even worse by parents parking dangerously and having no concern for the safety of their children and others in the area.

The area for concern is the junction between Rose Avenue and Gorse Road. Although the upper part of Rose Avenue is relatively car-free at the time they collect their children from school parents just block the lower part of the street.

I hope that when the parents concerned read this that they could consider spacing their cars out, even if it means children and parents walking a few more yards to their transport.

Mrs M Brown

Marsh

Preserve Castle Hill

JUST what is going on within Kirklees Council?

Chinese granite in St George’s Square and now proposals to site a “wine bar with rooms” inside the curtilage of a scheduled ancient monument, considered to be one of Yorkshire’s most important Iron Age forts.

What seriously saddens me is that a significant number of people seem to think it is more important that they are able to have a drink on the most prominent hilltop in Huddersfield than it is to preserve an ancient monument and the landscape, visible from miles around, for future generations.

Kirklees Council has a once – and once only – opportunity to protect Castle Hill from any development. I believe the council should grasp that opportunity with both hands; it has a moral duty to do so.

Huddersfield and Kirklees have a very long history of civic vandalism. If the Castle Hill proposal goes ahead I am sure the whole country will become aware of that history and the image of Kirklees as an excellent place to live and work would be irreparably damaged.

Can you imagine the outcry if a proposal were made to site a wine bar inside, say, Stonehenge, Caernarfon Castle or Housesteads Fort on Hadrian’s Wall? No. It could only happen in Huddersfield.

Redrock

It was a holy well

JUST to put the record straight re the map on your Walks and Rides page (August 30) the place between Broad Carr and Stainland is Holywell Green, not Hollywell. It is named after a well which stood, during my childhood, in St Helen’s Square, but which was moved when St Helen’s Square was obliterated during “improvements”.

The story attached to it was that it represented an ‘outlier’ of Fountains Abbey, near Ripon.

A L Jones

Meltham

Who should pay for security?

COMMENTING on the debate about whether the council or Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing should pay for extra security at Buxton House you say that it makes no difference because “it’s all our money” (“Seeing sense”, Comment September 2).

In fact, of course, the council draws its funds from all taxpayers, while KNH is funded by tenants’ rents, an important difference.

Clr Cooper was right to argue that the security should be put in place and the funding sorted out afterwards. But you and Clr Smithson both miss the key issue about who should pay. Anti-social behaviour on the town’s streets is a public responsibility, and everybody pays for the council and police to tackle it.

Why should it be down to the tenants alone when outsiders invade the communal areas of the block they live in?

David Griffiths

Edgerton

We accept the difference in funding, but still insist that this anti-social behaviour needs stamping on immediately. The funding of it can be a matter for future debate – EDITOR

The Beatles’ first again

I HAVE just returned from BeatleWeek 2008 in Liverpool to read the back copies of the Examiner and have seen the letters re the respect the Beatles had and the issue of their first number one.

Please Please Me did hit No 1 in all bar one of the UK charts I believe, but was not classed as a No 1 because it only got to No 2 in the chart used by the BBC at the time, hence it was not used on the recent Beatles 1 album. In the UK From Me To You was the first No 1, the first in a run of 11 No 1 singles, all selling in massive numbers.

Turning to Liverpool this year, there were not quite as many people there as usual, no doubt partly because of the present financial situation. But there were more people from all around the world; a big party from the USA, several from Russia, Japan and various EU countries. The bands that played over the week also came from all over the world.

One of the many highlights this year was a band that came over from Holland, sang in near-perfect English but sang Back In The USSR in Russian.

Marcus

What about the officials?

MOST people I talk to about St George’s Square can see no reason for yet another reorganisation, unless that was all the council could find to spend our money on.

Any normal person or organisation owning a Grade 1 listed monument in a conservation area setting and contemplating changes would have said to themselves: “We must talk to English Heritage about this before we make any decisions.” But not, it seems, Kirklees Council.

One could forgive the councillors themselves being unaware of the limits of their power or authority. But they are advised by officers whose job it is to protect councillors from what would otherwise be their folly.

I shall be very surprised if the council is not compelled to take up the Chinese setts and put back our fine local stone. And who will pay for this? The councillors who made the mistake or the officers who should have prevented it? Or will it be Joe Public yet again?

We should bear this in mind when the elections next come round.

ARTHUR QUARMBY

Holme

We have made it clear that the Examiner would support moves to replace the Chinese granite with Yorkstone – EDITOR

Tesco could pull out

I ENJOYED reading HLS’s anti-Tesco letter (Examiner August 29) suggesting that I may either work for or be a shareholder of Britain’s most successful company. I can assure HLS that I am neither of these things.

I fully sympathise with the residents of Springwood, whose proximity to the ring road, fire station, bus station, Sikh temple and all sorts of other noisy things must be a nuisance. However, the new sports centre (with 50-metre swimming pool please) is likely to make this area quieter.

Springwood car park is home for 400 lucky cars, but surely this valuable site deserves better.

Messrs MP Barry Sheerman, Clr Khan and HLS should be careful not to give Tesco an excuse to abandon Huddersfield altogether and spend their millions elsewhere. What our town does not need is further dereliction and neglect.

If the Tesco project (under the watchful eye of the guardians of our town) is handled properly then we may, for once, be graced with a couple of ring road buildings we could get to like.

Uncle Grumpy

Golcar

Just who’s at the helm?

THE curious behaviour of our Government is alarming. Dismal Darling does a Private Fraser (we’re all doomed), and Mutinous Miliband, after aiming a dagger at his boss’s back, tries to alienate the man who controls our gas supplies as winter beckons.

Brooding Brown, meanwhile, seems to be in denial about his culpability for our increasingly perilous economic situation. If this Government was an individual the men in white coats would be hovering. Brown, who claimed the credit for the good times and proclaimed an end to boom and bust, cannot avoid the blame for the bad ones. Anyone with any degree of worldly experience knows that life has its ups and downs. In the good days, while little luxuries are fine, it is sensible to set something aside for the inevitable rainy days to come.

I was tempted to say “prudent”, but Brown’s callous treatment of former paramour Prudence forbids. After all, he squandered the good-time income and sold the family gold at a knock-down price.

Worryingly, busted Brown seems to genuinely believe that he is the best person to steer the ship of state through these dangerous waters.

Rather like Captain Smith of the Titanic going on to seek the North-West Passage!

Meanwhile, as the ship’s officers squabble and the captain sulks in his cabin who is at the helm? An iceberg is a very hard place indeed and I have no faith in the (prodigal) son of the manse to steer around it.

Bill Armer

Deighton

Twinner’s thanks

THANK you for publishing my reply to Gordon Hirst about the Stocksmoor Twinning Association (Mailbag September 2). Thank you also for pointing out that my letter had crossed with his in the publishing. May I please thank Gordon for his “sincere apologies to the .. people of Stocksmoor and Olgiate”. The sentiment is most welcome and gratefully accepted.

J Brian Harrison-Jennings

Founder and past chairman of Stocksmoor and Villages Twinning Association.