THE LOCAL Fire Authority say they will save £250,000 by closing Marsden Fire Station.
The justification for this is the cuts imposed on local authorities by central government. The question for me is how these savings are made and where they are made.
The cuts are being made to front line services rather than cutting bureaucracy and the tiers of management and highly paid officials that are a modern feature of local government and public services.
Cuts should start at the top not at the bottom. The logic of this is that we can do without some front line services but can’t do without highly paid officials.
Who makes these decisions? Well highly paid officials. Turkeys don’t generally vote for Christmas. How much could be saved by chopping the district commander and/or the deputy chief fire officer to name but two?
How much do the people who sit on the fire authority get paid including the chair Clr Khan?
David Cameron said that the front line will be protected. This is clearly not happening.
You can’t trust the government on this because in many ways local government mirrors national government in that it is a gravy train not just for MPs and Ministers but for various advisers, consultants and goodness knows how many other hangers on.
The council and the government need to have a long hard look at themselves.
Liam McParland
Crosland Moor
Cutting elsewhere
NOW THAT the government has cut our emergency services down to the bone, is it not time to look elsewhere for cuts?
How about two of the most bloated, organised departments in the UK, the House of Lords and Parliament?
Let’s start by telling them both to cut £10million this year and for the next 10 years the same. It will be up to them how they do this.
The House of Lords could be cut down to 30 after all it is only a rewards club for the yes men and women who have been sucking up to the big wigs.
No redundancy to be paid as most of them have milked our money already
And now to Parliament. Mr Pickles has already sent out a list of things to our councils so I suggest they implement it straight away in Parliament.
Also, and this for councils as well, why do they have subsistence allowance and subsidised canteens.
Do they not eat when they are at home? I think you will find that most people when they go to work have to buy or take their own food.
I Staples
Huddersfield
So convenient
WHAT A difference a day makes. On Wednesday December 19, Kirklees Council decided to close eight unattended public toilets which were costing the council £75,000 per year to run.
On Thursday December 20 we read that the Government is withdrawing the right of councillors to be members of the Local Government Pension Scheme.
The cost to the council for those councillors who are members of the scheme is £75,000 per year.
Simply transfer the saved £75,000 from the councillors to the Convenience account and the eight public toilets will be able to remain open.
C R Atkinson
Honley
Powerful figures
STEPHEN Dorril (Examiner, December 21) has, in my view, written a confusing set of half truth figures which do not show all of the problems associated with wind and other forms of renewable energy.
Mr Dorril quotes Germany and its track record of closing eight nuclear reactors and by doing so has reduced it's CO emissions by 2.4%.
Granted Germany has made huge strides in its ever changing energy market and production.
Wind does account for 30% of renewable energy they also have hydro, biomass, biogas and lastly solar. Collectively they are still but a tiny percentage (1.5%) of Germany’s total energy production.
In 2009 Germany’s energy was: oil 34%, natural gas 21.7%, lignite 11.4%, bituminous coal 11.1%, nuclear power 11.0% and hydro, wind and others 1.5%.
Mr Dorril failed to tell the readers that Germany is the fifth largest consumer of oil in the world.
Germany is the third largest consumer of natural gas and Germany is the fourth largest consumer of coal.
Germany closed eight of its oldest nuclear plants after the Fukushima accident last year.
They still have 17 nuclear plants online which look to close sometime in the 2030s. Germany’s renewable energy is more present in the domestically produced energy, since Germany imports about two thirds of its energy mostly from Frances nuclear power stations.
We could reduce our CO2 levels at a stroke simply by doing as the Germans have and we let another country produce our energy. Germany’s main source of electricity is coal and they have recently planned to build 26 new coal plants which seems counter productive to curbing emissions. In 2002 Germany was Europe’s largest consumer of electricity.
In 2004 Germany consumed the fifth most energy in the world per capita. The list goes on and on but the bottom line must be that Germany has far much more of everything than we have.
Money, manufacturing and political power these attributes go a long long way in getting you what you want.
SMD
Huddersfield
Continuing change
GULLIBLE Greens pontificating again!
1 In 1895 geologists and astronomers confirmed the approaching, inevitable freezing-up of the world, and the extinction of life on earth.
2 In 1985 scientists knew that the developing hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was threatening mankind, unless human activity (especially industrialisation) was severely curtailed.
3 Many peoples forecast that the world would end on 20.12.2012.
4 The Greens are just the latest pseudo-scientific scaremongers, which they seem to be making into a new religion, which it is heresy to deny.
Of course the world’s climate is changing (note that the basis has shifted – no longer global warming but climate change), and often very dramatically.
It always has and it always will, whether humans are here or not.
The only permanence is change.
Arthur Quarmby
Holme
Backing Thandi brothers
RICHARD Parker (Letters, December 18). How harsh you are regarding the Thandi brothers and the pub on the hill.
Times are hard and the majority of people would like to see the Thandi brothers trying to put some pleasure in to all the doom and gloom we are all going through. Why should they be forced to sell at a loss?
If you miss a pub so much why are you so against the Thandis and the pub on the hill. Once again give them a break. Good luck Thandi brothers.
CT
Huddersfield
