WHAT a load of codswallop was my reaction towards our MPs when I saw your headline regarding the post office closures: “Last Post for nine branches – MPs ready to do battle”. Yes, here our Labour MPs go again. It’s all a bit deja vu following the downgrading of the maternity services at HRI.
Words of condemnation, promises to fight etc, etc. But your Editorial Comment hit the nail on the head. It’s the Labour Government that’s ordering these cuts and it’s the local MPs who are supporting them. The closure of 2,500 post offices is happening thanks to the loyal voting record of the local Labour MPs.
Take Colne Valley’s Labour MP; since 2002 she has always voted with the Government in matters regarding the post office closure programme, apart from three absences.
In March this year she voted AGAINST this motion:
“This House ... regrets the proposal to close up to 2,500 post offices; recognises the vital role post offices play in local communities; notes the concern and unpopularity among the general public of closing such a large portion of the network; has concerns that the access criteria laid down for the closures consultation do not adequately take into account local geographical factors and public transport networks; is concerned that the consultation period is only for six weeks rather than three months, as recommended by Cabinet Office guidelines; believes that post offices must move with the times in the services they offer and that options for business expansion and developing business opportunities with local authorities should be explored further; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform to instruct Post Office Limited to suspend the compulsory closure of sub-post offices while these issues are re-assessed.”
No wonder folk are disillusioned with politicians. Finally, why is it that Darling and Brown can find billions to prop up Northern Rock, which benefits hundreds of thousands, but not millions to benefit the millions of customers who use local and rural post offices?
Robert McGuin
Marsh
‘Badly concealed Thatcherites’
IT’S about time Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman decided whether he is an MP elected by the Huddersfield people to serve their best interests or yet another careerist politician tucked in the back pocket of big business bosses.
His comments in Tuesday’s paper suggest that he agrees with the need to shut post offices because he thinks they are under-used. What exactly does he expect? His Government, showing further signs that they are Thatcherites in a badly concealed disguise, have sold off large parts of the postal service to private companies!
So yes Barry, we don’t use the post offices much because you and your governmental friends have forced us to go elsewhere. It’s time to open your eyes and stand up for Huddersfield folk who demand a well-funded, quality postal service available to all.
Monique Hirst
Crosland Moor
Advantages for Tesco
IN response to your article about Clr Ken Sims’ challenge to Mr Barry Sheerman about the proposed new Tesco store in the town I think the information contained in your article supports Mr Sheerman’s plea for more openness.
The great advantages to Tesco are quite clearly shown; a big new store on one of which must surely be one of the most prestigious sites in the town and the benefit from using its existing Viaduct Street site for a large new development of offices, shops, hotel and apartments.
The only benefit (presumably) to the town would be a replacement sports centre in Springwood. On the face of it this looks like an extremely poor exchange for the great advantages open to Tesco.
I think it becomes even clearer that there is definitely a necessity for the whole transaction to be examined by some very well-qualified, impartial body, to determine whether or not the town is getting as much benefit from this most important transaction as most obviously Tesco is.
It would also be interesting to know how much expenditure Kirklees Council anticipates will be needed in the future to deal with the enormous traffic problems that will arise on an already congested main road through the town.
If the council has nothing to fear and is proud of its agreement with Tesco why should it object to the town being told openly what its advantages are compared with those to be gained by Tesco?
margaret j bailey
Lindley
Information packs con
REGARDING Home Information Packs. It is just another way for the Government to make easy money and it’s all a big con. As a market researcher I decided to do some research of my own. I applied for a job and went to Manchester for the interview. It was a top-floor luxury modern (recently equipped with computers) office near the station.
They wanted £3,000 off me to be taught the job and I would have to stay working for them for three years. How many idiots fell for it? Probably lots.
The Government is making fools out of us all; it’s a useless venture. Whoever heard of someone not buying a property they liked on the claim it wasn’t energy efficient, which they could do when it was theirs.
The public is being ripped off again; £200-plus and not worth the paper it’s written on.
a bamforth
Brockholes
PS: I declined the job offer
No smoke without . . .
I WAS once advised that “you have to train twice a day to make the national team”. In my declining years I run just once a day, but I wonder if I’ve still a chance to make the London Olympics in 2012. Well who else is there!
I regularly run by pubs, offices, factories, even residences where I am greeted by clouds of smoke emanating from the citizens loitering outside.
Many moons ago a good running friend of mine used to say: “I’m not fit enough to smoke.”
In the great New York Yankees baseball teams of the 1920s and 1930s one man stood out. Known as the “Iron Horse”, Hall-of-Fame first baseman played baseball every day, without a day off, 154 games a year for over 14 seasons and racked up an awe-inspiring 2,132 consecutive games, plus eight World Series. He had to come out of the line-up in 1938 having contracted amiobropic lateral sclerosis (ALS), now known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease; a contributory factor to this was his heavy smoking. By June, 1941, he was dead at the age of 38. I guess even Lou Gehrig wasn’t fit enough to smoke.
paul pickup
Lindley
Holmfirth horrors!
A NUMBER of questions came to mind when I was in Holmfirth the other day. Is somebody having a laugh? Is someone out there trying to make Holmfirth look ridiculous? Do planners and/or architects ever consider what others have to live with when their work is done? I think not!
Not only have Holmfirth residents had to put up with the monstrosity called “Riverside” for years (opening soon?) we now have “the old” attached to “the new”, namely the Brook Turner shop front which appeared as if stuck on as an afterthought to the new development on Huddersfield Road. Somehow old stonework which is in keeping with the area suddenly has a place with new stonework which isn’t!
Why couldn’t the Brook Turner frontage have been incorporated in the new build to start with? I for one would certainly not want to be the resident in the apartment immediately behind this structure.
Is it me; am I missing something here? I don’t think so, judging by the response of my fellow neighbours.
Name and address supplied
Laws are too relaxed
IN a recent press report a senior judge condemns licensing laws because, he says, they “were relaxed to the point where, effectively, there aren’t any.”
We are living in a Britain where the laws as a whole are so relaxed they may just as well not exist. Every day there is news of murder, rape, theft, muggings, child abuse, animal abuse etc etc etc.
If, and I stress the word if, the perpetrators of these crimes are apprehended the punishment is usually a smack on the wrist or suspended sentence.
The sooner a few more judges follow the lead of His Honour Judge Graham Cottle the sooner we get rid of the riff raff in our society.
Billy Richardson
Honley
Allotments appeal
AS National Allotment Week (August 10-17) approaches it is worth noting that Kirklees Council may be on the point of reversing years of neglect of allotments.
Many council sites have closed through neglect and lack of proper stewardship and many sites in the hands of private companies are threatened with closure, despite being in existence for many years and being well supported.
It is necessary for Kirklees Council and the parish councils in the area to take a lead in actively promoting allotments as part of a local food strategy which will give people the opportunity to become more self-sufficient and decrease dependency on supermarkets.
The council has a number of responsibilities in respect of the provision of allotments and the standard of services provided. It is crucial that the council takes a lead by developing additional sites and working with local communities to open up more opportunities for the growing and distribution of local food.
In addition, it must help those who are threatened with closure.
If Kirklees and the parish councils can move on from the current poor levels of service then allotments can play an important role in community regeneration and health promotion.
If they fail to respond to the new public need for growing food in an age of peak oil and climate change they may find increasing public dissatisfaction with the ability of local government to meet their needs.
David Hargreaves
Almondbury
