AS a ratepayer I was rather alarmed to read that “Tesco plan a big step” to change the face of Huddersfield.

They seem to have an enormous and disproportionate influence over what happens in our town.

First of all we hear the Government overrules a decision by our council not to allow a Tesco in one of our districts and our own council seems to ignore the disadvantages of Tesco’s proposals, such as greatly increased traffic congestion on our main road and the loss of public parking space.

I should like some assurance that the members of our council and the MPs who represent us are not being steam-rollered by Tesco and that they are employing highly qualified people to judge impartially how much benefit is being gained by the town to affect the apparent considerable gains to Tesco.

I am no expert, but the scheme as outlined at the moment seems to be extraordinarily advantageous to Tesco and I would like to hear of similar advantages, both financial and from a town planning point of view, to the council which seems to be very acquiescent and very quiet whenever objections are raised.

Margaret Bailey

Lindley

Dream of a school show

I WAS thoroughly entertained by an excellent production of Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat presented by the students of Colne Valley High School.

This has highlighted a real team spirit by everyone involved to deliver a really good show despite missing a week of rehearsals due to bad weather. It is a pleasure to be associated with the school, staff and students who deserve a lot of credit for their effort and commitment.

Angela Bamforth

Slaithwaite

Stop and search hoodies

THE 10 police pledges handed out by Kirklees’ ‘top cop’ came across to me as a load off namby pamby nonsense with no substance or backbone to what the public really expect from its serving police force.

Personally I’m not bothered about meetings, updates and discussions. That to me sounds more like a boy scout coffee morning than a criminal crackdown. I want a hard-as-nails, in-your-face, tough-acting policing, getting sought-after arrests and reducing the number of vagrants who plague our communities.

I want increased stop and searches on hoodies (people may moan about profiling but it’s effective), more police (with power) on the estates that are constantly littered with crime, less bobbies by the roadside with a speed gun raking in revenues from motorists and instead more routine stops on vehicles by intuitionist officers.

Tell us about the new creative frontline policing you have up your sleeve, if any.

Let’s put it this way Mr Chief Superintendent, if I was I low life criminal reading your list of promises I wouldn’t exactly be shaking in my ‘stolen’ boots!

Skye Turner

Huddersfield

Poor road repairs

I READ your coverage of the latest report (Examiner, February 25) on road maintenance with interest.

It seems like an attempt is being made to divert blame towards the utility companies when the reality is somewhat different.

The council uses its powers to make sure that the utility companies repair the roads when they have to do their works which have to be done since their apparatus is in the highway. It looks as if the council is quite good at enforcing this – the situation is a lot better than it used to be when the utilities were in public ownership.

The real problem with road quality now lies with the council’s failure to repair the roads in situations where the utility companies are not involved. Why is this?

There is no organisation (excluding national Government) specifically charged with making the council perform its statutory obligations which, over the years, seem to have become more like preferences.

As a consequence – and I suggest casual observance confirms this – the utility companies do good repairs whereas the council stick a bit of cold tarmac down and thump it a couple of times.

Why does the council behave this way? I’m sure they would like to have better roads so the answer must be that there is never enough cash. Why never enough? Because the subject never gets to the top of the local or national political agenda. I suggest that responsibility for mending the roads be taken away from Kirklees and given to a private body which would be given all the road taxes we pay, their obligations being enforced for us by the council. Any takers? No? we will just muddle along as usual!

Ben Atkinson

New Mill

No bedside prayers

I AM in total agreement with Leah Chapman (letters, Saturday, February 21) regarding the suspension of the Christian nurse Caroline Petrie.

I would simply ask Theresa Quarmby how she would feel if she woke up after an operation only to find a foolish nurse standing at the end of her bed praying for her.

I know how I would feel – that my number must be up!

Ms Petrie should stick to the job she is paid to do and stop upsetting patients – they have enough to worry about.

Robert Nicholls

Kirkburton

Planet-saving skills

IN THIS economic downturn BAE Systems has reported on a ‘good growth’ in their core business, which surely means more and deadlier weapons being let loose on the world.

The Green Party urges BAE to turn its skills to the manufacture of mass-produced and efficient equipment such as solar, wind and other renewable energy technology.

Their brilliant technology team could refine and lead the way in the mass production of low carbon vehicles for civilian use which would reduce the production of CO2 and give much needed employment to the thousands of car makers facing redundancy.

BAE’s self-congratulating and aggressive report is so 20th Century. The main thing we need to in the 21st Century is to ‘beat our swords into ploughshares.’

How can we continue sabre-rattling when the human race and all other species on the planet are threatened with extinction?

There is a green revolution screaming to be given birth and successful companies like BAE can and should lead the way.

Shan Oakes

Green Party Candidate for the European Elections

Darwin’s socialist rival

PAUL Elliott (Examiner, February 25) rightly points out that Darwin was not the first to come up with the idea of evolution.

However, what he fails to say is that Darwin was not the only one to arrive at the conclusion that natural selection was the mechanism of evolution.

Darwin was almost pre-empted by Alfred Russell Wallace who quite independently also saw the origin of new species in the struggle for survival. Wallace only came up with the idea in 1858 whereas Darwin had been thinking about it for 20 years. If he had sent his paper on the subject directly to a journal he would have been the first to appear in print.

Consequently, he would now be hailed as the discoverer of natural selection.

As it happened, he sent it first to Darwin to seek his opinion. Darwin was stunned by this anticipation of his own theory and was goaded by Wallace’s article into making his own research public.

With a magnanimity lacking in some of his later followers, he did this by presenting both Wallace’s paper and his own to the Linnean Society. Darwin even considered conceding priority to Wallace, but was persuaded not to by friends.

Darwin had the advantage of being in England, rubbing shoulders with eminent scientists, while Wallace was stuck in the Malay Archipelago. Darwin also came from a respectable Liberal family with the benefit of a university education while Wallace was a self-taught Socialist.

This did not stop the two men despite later disagreements, remaining friends.

However, the scientific community was less tolerant.

Wallace, as a socialist also took further than Darwin the view that natural selection played a role in human evolution.

But there was something which he found he could not explain – that was the fact that the human brain had evolved a capacity far greater than that required for the survival of the species in the past.

He therefore concluded that there must be something else at work, some intentionality, some design, related to the spiritual nature of man.

This is, of course, anathema to today’s neo-Darwinians who see ‘intelligent design’ as synonymous with Creationism and at odds with natural selection.

Wallace has therefore been swept under the carpet and his work has been largely ignored. The fact that Wallace also believed that the job of the scientist was to improve human society and the relationship between man and nature is also an embarrassment today when may biologists have prostituted their science to capitalism and to technology which threatens the living planet.

This is not intended to detract from Darwin’s achievement. Darwinism has more of a ring to it than Wallaceism after all.

But we should remember that science is not just a series of discoveries by great men, but a result of collective effort.

Alan Brooke

Honley