KIRKLEES Highways Department, at councillors’ behest, has spent at least the last four decades telling people to get out of their cars and onto public transport and doing their best to force them to do so by deterring and thwarting motorists in every way possible.

By failing to maintain road surfaces, narrowing every main road, by introducing bottlenecks, bus lanes, bicycle lanes and deliberate stop-start traffic flows in roads awash with street furniture and speed cameras, the Highways Department has certainly achieved all its aims in isolating the town centre.

Most drivers dread the thought of the journey into Huddersfield and the parking problems awaiting them there.

Now with half the shops in town empty and boarded up, half the stalls in the Market Hall without tenants and six empty shops in the existing Kingsgate, Kirklees decides the answer is to build yet another town centre shopping mall, as far away from the bus station as they can possibly get it.

And they still have the nerve to keep telling us they are ‘planning for the future.’

Oh, one last thing. If all these bicycle lanes are justified, why haven’t they included cycle parking racks in any of the new developments?

There must be thousands of frustrated cyclists wanting to park up and shop before riding home with a new telly and everything else they have bought strapped to their backs.

John Langford

Lepton

Church land for sale

AS reported in the Examiner (March 23), a petition of 2,400 signatures was presented to Lambeth Palace for the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury by Rod Lilley, chairman of the Chidswell Action Group, Bill Beattie, secretary of the Thornhill Lees Community Action Group and Mark Eastwood, Conservative candidate for Dewsbury East, accompanied by Simon Reevell MP and Dewsbury South Clr Khizar Iqbal.

The Archbishop is on the board of governors of the Church Commissioners who own green belt land at Chidswell and Thornhill Lees.

The land was only purchased last summer and the Commissioners stand to make millions by selling it to Kirklees who will build on it as part of their controversial Local Development Framework proposals.

When Clr Mehboob Khan and Clr Kath Pinnock are making wholesale budget cuts, can someone tell me where we are getting the money to fund this proposed land purchase?

Are we now purchasing land to fulfil Labour and Liberal LDF targets?

If this deal goes through will it make a profit and if so, where is the money going? As a tax payer I wish to know where my money is going. There should be no behind closed doors deals. This is our money – money which is supposed to pay for services, not land deals.

These so called council leaders need to go before they do too much harm to our ever dwindling services.

R J Bray

Shelley

Not in it together

MR BRAY seems to have missed the point of my letter (‘One rule for the rich’, Mailbag, March 12).

Many people are fed up with David Cameron, Government ministers and others telling us ‘we are all in this together’. This is blatantly not true!

This ‘campaign phrase’, we were told, implied that the national ‘burden’ would somehow be shared fairly and equally among all sections of society dependent on their income and wealth.

There are hundreds of cases, many reported in the Examiner almost on a daily basis, where this is clearly not the case.

I merely mentioned one example. That is, a rise of over 30% in sales of some cars costing over £100,000 each in 2011.

MS

Shepley

Labour ‘successes’

FURTHER to Mr Vant’s recent letter to the Examiner – I am filled with remorse.

Apparently the last Labour government was a great success, despite all appearances.

I am guilty of thinking they were a hopeless shambles and that the economic collapse at that time was not due to outside factors as every Labour government in history has ended in economic fiasco. They couldn’t manage a whelk stall.

Even worse, this hapless Labour government led us into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with more than 400 dead and thousands mutilated – for what?

Five minutes after we leave they will be at each others’ throats, just as they have been for hundreds of years.

Thank you, Labour!

Barry Fowler

Newsome

Let’s end the war

I THINK the people of this country should demand that the Prime Minister stands up and explains now why we are still sending our young boys out to Afghanistan.

What are we fighting for? Everyone is asking the same question.

This was never our war and we should not have gone in. The Russians couldn’t succeed, so how are we going to do it?

Jill Hallas

Huddersfield

Town’s shop strengths

I WOULD be interested to hear how many of the proposed 600 to 900 jobs at Kingsgate 2 will be at management/supervisory level and what pay scales they’re on.

Also how many of the jobs will be from other businesses rather than created.

Although employment is obviously very important and an emotive subject for us all, for a sustainable future we need quality employment opportunities with real prospects.

You only have to check Rightmove to see how many commercial properties are for sale or lease at the moment in Huddersfield town centre.

If Huddersfield is as ripe for investment by retailers as the Kingsgate PR machine advertises, we should be encouraging independent retailers and chains into the already available properties. Rather than trying to compete with cities such as Leeds, Bradford and Manchester, maybe we should be trying to pull on the strengths of Huddersfield as a market town and promote independent retailers.

I will be supporting the growing fledgling campaign to oppose this expansion and urge my fellow Huddersfield residents to scratch beneath the surface of this glossy white elephant proposal to see it for what it truly is – a money making machine for Mr Everest.

C Horsfall

Huddersfield

Leaky Budgets

MANY years ago the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Dalton lost his job when he revealed some of the content of his Budget to a journalist shortly before delivering his speech in the House of Commons.

He was in clear breach of the hallowed principle that the content of the Chancellor’s red box should remain secret until he revealed his proposals in his speech to the House.

George Osborne’s budget was predictable because most of it had been leaked to the media beforehand and yet he still remains in a job.

But this is not an honourable government. Osbourne didn’t even pretend this time round that ‘we are all in this together.’ He did what Tory governments are good at by taking money from 4.4m tax paying pensioners to give income tax cuts for 300,000 of this country’s richest families.

It’s also time we heard a bit of praise for Labour’s Ed Miliband who regularly trounces the policies of this government in Parliament and its front bench, all of whom stand to benefit financially by this Budget by the rich for the rich.

JOHN APPLEYARD

Liversedge

Great care for dad

WITH all the bad press care homes for the elderly seem to be getting at the moment we feel we have to write and let you know about the wonderful Aden Mount Care Home where our dad spent the last six months of his life.

Nothing is too much trouble for all the fantastic people who work there and they all know and lovingly care for every one of the residents.

Their care also extended to us too during the last few days of dad’s life.

It is now such a comfort to us to know he was so well looked after when we could no longer care for him at home.

So thank you once again to all at Aden Mount.

A very grateful family

Huddersfield