CHAS Ball from the Green Party is right to champion rail travel over the use of the car (Mailbag September 22).

However the fact of the matter is that rail fares are constantly rising which from the point of view of many short distance commuters makes car travel cheaper.

I agree that the rail network needs to be expanded drastically to meet current demand and to get cars off the road, but when rail companies are dominated by share holding parasites whose greed is put before the needs of either the passenger or the environment then this is not going to happen.

Any serious plan to expand the network and make it affordable has to include taking these grasping companies back into public ownership, putting them under the control of rail workers and users and planning for the needs of society as a whole and not private profit.

Ian Brooke

Almondbury

Yorkshire food on continental stalls!

YESTERDAY afternoon while on my lunch I happened to glance down from my office window at the ongoing continental market that began last week.

It puzzled me to notice a stall purveying what appeared to be Native American ware amongst the now usual stalls from Spain, France etc.

I applaud the council (or whoever is responsible) for having the presence of mind to put these events on. I feel it brightens up the place and provides the opportunity for a very welcome change to the lunches of those who work in the town centre.

But where are the stalls of the local farmers and producers?

Here in Huddersfield and the surrounding areas we have an excellent choice of farm shops, butchers and local fruit and veg producers, not to mention award-winning pie and pasty makers. It seems a great shame to me that they seem to miss out on these events, not to mention the Huddersfield people.

Maybe there should be a section of the continental market events dedicated to local produce?

BEN ELLAM

Linthwaite

Why mess with our buses?

THE letter “Anger at Bus Change” (Mailbag Sept 18) prompts me to add that residents in the Barcroft Road, Croftlands, Lockwood Scar and Cross Lane etc area of Newsome are also extremely dissatisfied with recent changes to our bus services.

The 306, 307, 308 and 319 follow the same route to the bus station along Colne Road and up Chapel Hill. Why change the 306 service which ran along Kings Mill Lane serving Donaldson vets, the university, Sainsbury’s, Shorehead, the Kingsgate Centre, Packhorse Precinct, the outdoor market and banks etc?

Who on earth was responsible for these detrimental changes? Obviously consultation did not take place with the people adversely affected, ie the bus users in this area.

A DISGRUNTLED PASSENGER

Huddersfield

Story behind car fire report

(“CARS wrecked”, Examiner Sept 19) – just another car fire, shrug our shoulders. It happens every day! How did we become so cynical?

But this time it wasn’t just another fire, the car belonged to my daughter and son-in-law.

It was ‘only’ a seven-year-old Fiesta, paid for with hard earned money. Money earned by travelling to Leeds every day, a necessity for travelling to employment that’s hard to get to by public transport.

My daughter was due to give birth on Thursday to their second child, luckily junior has decided to make a late arrival as mum and dad frantically try to replace the car and the children’s car seats that were also destroyed.

They have never had much money and work hard for what they have. I am very proud of both of them.

Have the people responsible for the fire any pride?

I doubt it. They must have no thought or regret for the hardship and heartache they cause.

When are we going to say enough is enough and punish all crimes appropriately?

These cars were parked on private land, secured by a locked barrier, so another car will be parked roadside in future to keep it more visible.

GRANDMA

Huddersfield

Store carry on a farce

COME on, Co-op/Sainsbury’s, get your fingers out and get sorted (Examiner, Sept 19). It was May 2007 when Co-op decided to sell the Salendine Nook premises to Sainsbury’s, it is now September 08.

Staff at this store have been fobbed off with all sorts of stories, they do not know where they stand.

No explanation is being given to them, only when something is in print. They have been left to carry the can for disgruntled customers with no appointed manager and are expected to carry on regardless.

Some are having to open the shop and close it without remuneration, not knowing if and when their jobs will be safe once this farce is solved.

Come on, Co-op/Sainsbury’s, keep staff and customers fully informed. This shop has been a good shop over the years, let us see a satisfactory conclusion.

Mrs P Senior

Huddersfield

Letting relatives choose life or death

SO Baroness Warnock is in favour of letting those with dementia and Alzheimer’s choose to die if they so wish. Many of us have relatives who suffer so, but they are our kin and we love them.

Most of the sufferers would not be mentally capable of making such a decision so a third party would have to make a decision for them. Doctors take an oath to save lives and not end it.

Going down the road of letting a relative decide is beyond comprehension if it is your mother or father. What right has this woman to choose what category of disease is unacceptable?

Of course they are hard work and mentally tiring to look after but to go down this road would have huge legal implications if relatives were to profit by this inhuman practice.

W TAYLOR

Huddersfield

Shank’s pony to Lindley Moor

I AGREE with Mrs Mackay of Linthwaite (Mailbag, Sept 19). Lindley Moor land was given to the people of Huddersfield for posterity and that means forever, despite firms and councillors wanting to get their hands on the land.

Although it is about eight years since I was able to the get to the Moor, the stone was there then. My family used to walk around the land and the heather. The views across to Halifax were spectacular.

Where is Lindley Moor? I believe Lindley Moor Road runs alongside the M62. Lindley Moor is on the other side of the M62, next door to Outlane Cricket Club. I believe you find Wappy Springs pub, go under the M62 bridge and turn sharp left up a steep road.

You need either a car or good Shank’s ponies (legs) to get to Lindley Moor.

BH

Huddersfield

We’ve no links to KEHRA

MAY I be permitted to point out that Huddersfield Human Rights Centre, which has been in existence under its present name for over four years, has no relation, whatsoever to Kirklees Equality and Human Rights Agency (Examiner September 23).

We have no paid staff, nor any funding, except that which is contributed by unpaid volunteers, also we are not related to any political party or government organisation at local or national level.

We operate on the basis or mutual aid to support individuals or groups, who are victims of human rights abuse at home or abroad. We do not take part in government initiated projects and initiatives which are merely cosmetic exercises, designed to divert attention from the real injustices in society.

So far this year over 600 people, mainly “failed” asylum seekers, have sought our assistance.

We would like to express our sympathy for those staff at KEHRA, formerly Kirklees Racial Equality Council, who have striven over the years to improve race relations in the area, and hope that the present setback is not allowed to overshadow al the good work they have done.

A J Brooke

Campaign Coordinator

Keep on waving the flag

DID you watch Last Night of the Proms? Didn’t it warm the cockles of your heart to see all these flags being waved do patriotically? Union flags, St George’s flags, Scotland, Wales, Australia etc etc. I even saw a Yorkshire Rose.

Keep on waving the flag for Britain – I do.

Don’t let them take from us all that we hold dear. Rule Britannia. God Save the Queen!

Marjorie Medrek

Bradley

No fears about fluoride

IT has long been a source of puzzlement to me that so many people should be alarmed about fluoride in the water supply. I wonder if it is the very name, fluoride, that sounds threatening. It occurs naturally and unavoidably in some areas and it was this that led to the discovery of its specific effect on teeth.

Health authorities wish to replace what I prefer to call a missing trace element through tiny quantities in those water supplies where it does not occur naturally. A recent correspondent called this “Hitlerite mass medication” and called upon councillors to reject it.

Before our children were born my wife took fluoride tablets on her dentist’s advice and then gave them to the children consistently. Significantly, we were the chemist’s only customer for these. The result for all three has been a remarkable paucity of fillings right through to middle age. My wife and I bless that dentist for the advice that saved our children from the misery of the dentist’s chair and all the root fillings, crowns and problems we have endured.

In a society with a dearth of NHS dentists and an excess of sugar it seems crazy that millions of children should be deprived of this benefit because of a successful propaganda campaign by a vociferous minority who had strong suspicions and anxieties but no scientific backing.

C R Atkinson (Mailbag September 22) pleads for ‘pure’ water. No such thing can exist outside a laboratory, not even in bottles, in fact especially not in bottles. There is safe water and there is unsafe water. With or without fluoride our water in the UK is safe.

If councillors are to decide on this issue they should vote for fluoride as a well proven extra well researched public health measure. They should not kowtow to illogical, uninformed opinion no matter how melodramatic the arguments put forward.

Mark Mercer

Golcar