I WANT to say three cheers for Christine Illingworth (I want to stay with council home care, Mailbag, August 1) for stating so eloquently why she wants Kirklees Council to provide her home care.

My mother is in her 90s and her carers are kind, experienced and trained people who know her and know what she needs even when she cannot remember herself.

Everyone involved in home care knows this privatisation will be disastrous everyone, it seems, except the senior managers and councillors who have made the decision.

I reiterate Christine Illingworths call for those decision-makers to spend a day with the carers and service users and find out just what their decision will mean.

It has already left most of us very worried and many service users are terrified and upset that the friendly faces they see every day will be replaced by strangers.

It is now August and we are still in the dark about what will be happening next month.

We need the trade unions and the local and national elderly and disabled charities to help us to campaign against this decision.

At the moment service users and their families are feeling frightened, isolated and powerless.

Brigid Harbour

Marsden

Property management

WHAT links the policies of Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron?

A belief that things are better run by removing the dead hand of local government and handing power to local people such as school and college governors and boards of housing associations.

The problem is that when things go wrong as they have done with Sadeh Lok Housing group (Watchdogs rap for social housing group, Examiner, August 3) there is nothing local people can do.

I find it hard to believe that they paid a chief executive £129,000 to run 1,100 properties. With this sort of financial care I am not surprised that the finances are in a mess.

I am sure that if the housing association was wound up and the properties handed over to Kirklees Neighbourhood Housing (KNH), efficiency and effectiveness would improve.

It would also free up their headquarters which look almost as big as KNHs, despite the fact that they have about 22,000 fewer properties to deal with. ê

Tony Woodhead

Lindleyê

Scrap of evidence

WITH regard to the case of stolen lead and other materials the obvious place to go to is a scrap yard.

The police have at last said they are to visit and enquire.

Could I suggest that CCTV cameras be placed at the entrance and cash offices to view prospective clients?

If the scrap yards object perhaps their operating licences could be reviewed.

G Kennedy

Newsome

Loan to College

THERE have been a number of letters to the Examiner about the loan the council has made to Kirklees College. ê

I wanted to make clear the nature of this loan which was put in place to secure a better future for our young people and help provide jobs during the recession.

The £23m did not come from existing local funds but was borrowed by the council from national government funds they make available to local authorities for large building and capital projects. We did not loan money to the college that could have been spent on day to day council services.

The council can borrow from this national fund at a rate which would have been unavailable to the college. ê

We borrowed it exclusively with the purpose of lending it to the college at no expense to council tax payers.

Availability of this loan made a real difference in the colleges successful bid to receive additional funding from other organisations such as the Learning and Skills Council having this funding pushed the Waterfront up their list of priorities. ê

Across the country very few other projects received funding.

The new college building is only part of a significant development and investment project at a time of recession, when many other regeneration projects have stalled or been scrapped altogether.

David Smith

Director of Resources, Kirklees Council

Paying to park

AS a resident of George Street in Lindley, can I offer to pay £30 a year (57p a day) so that I can park outside my house?

Its impossible to park when both local schools are open.

J Green

Lindley

Hunt obsession

JOE Duckworth, the new CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports, recently sent a letter to the Examiner (Dont shoot badgers, Mailbag, August 2) encouraging readers to report the activity of their local hunts.

Not only is he inciting a wholly unnecessary big brother citizen surveillance operation, he also demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Hunting Act.

Mr Duckworth believes that hunts are regularly breaking the law and 200 have been convicted.

Well I hate to burst this particular bubble, but of the 181 convictions under the Act, only six of those relate to registered hunts. The rest have been for poaching which has absolutely nothing to do with the hunts.

When he talks about his professional observers he is mainly referring to a tiny number of individuals who film hunt followers.

Is this really the act of a registered charity?

The hunts stated intention is to hunt within the law and most enjoy good relations with their local police.

The Hunting Act is now seen by those who were responsible for it, including Tony Blair, as a bad piece of legislation which fails on all fronts.

Mr Duckworth and his small band of animal rights activists are doing little more than wasting police time with their pointless pursuit of law-abiding hunts.

Simon Hamlyn

Northern Regional Director, Countryside Alliance

Praise for Kirklees

KIRKLEES Council often get bad press, therefore I wanted to write regarding something in my opinion they have done very well.

Late on Wednesday evening I made an on-line request for a bulky item removal. The item was removed before 7.30am two days later. Excellent service and, as of yet, its free.

I believe in giving praise when praise is due. Keep up the good work.

Jane Bridger

Grange Moor

Lindley Moor truth

JUST about everybody is against the Lindley Moor development all the political parties and local MPs included.

Can we therefore have a list of those people who profess to represent us Kirklees councillors on the relevant committees who are pushing for this development?

I feel people should know who their enemies are.

John

Marsh

Yorkshire Day in USA

IN reply to Brian Lawrence (Rose to the occasion, Mailbag, August 8) regarding Yorkshire Day.

Fear not big brother, you werent alone in celebrating all things Yorkshire on August 1.

We marked the day here, though sad to say I couldnt find a white rose to wear.

I sent Yorkshire Day greetings to friends in America and received replies which assured me that, for one brief shining day, the white rose spread its petals and two places in the glorious west became outposts of Gods own county.

And as evening fell, glasses were raised and hearty toasts of Eh UP! (no doubt echoed by the neighbourhood coyotes) rang out across a canyon in Idaho and the desert in New Mexico.

So even if your fellow Yorkshiremen seemed reluctant to acknowledge their special day, you can rest assured that we and at least five people on the other side of the big pond were proud to join you in doing so.

Victoria Gott

Emley