THE British pay nearly £50 billion a year in motoring-related taxes but less than £10 billion goes back into roads.

For this we get too few roads, potholes, congestion, anti-car councils, inadequate winter maintenance, buses, trains and trams we never use – the list goes on.

Yet Professor Bamford from Huddersfield University reckons we still don’t pay enough (‘Why drivers ‘must pay more’, Examiner, April 21).

As per the usual argument, he reckons we should be forced out of our personal vehicles and onto public transport whether we like it or not and whether it’s convenient or not.

Where does he think the taxes to subsidise public transport would come from then?

This, of course, is the thinly-disguised social engineering so beloved of the Left and Greens – control over the masses, particularly those who desire to look after themselves without State interference.

The University Transport and Logistics department has been preaching its anti-car philosophy for many years now.

This wouldn’t really matter but for the fact that the brain-washed graduates go on to work in local council highways departments, government departments and various quangos that have a detrimental impact on our everyday lives.

I sometimes think there are people out there who would object to any personal transport, even if it was the size of a matchbox and ran on fresh air.

Richard Huddleston

West Slaithwaite

Parochial Luddite view

I DON’T know why Alan Brooke is being so parochial in playing off Huddersfield against Liversedge in his letter (The centre of Luddism, April 26).

No-one with a love for history would decry the role of the Huddersfield Luddites or any other Luddite, wherever they come from.

As a member of the Spen Valley Civic Society I welcome the Luddite Cenotaph at Liversedge. It represents the oppressed worker against the oppressive boss and also puts Liversedge on the map.

In 1809 William Cartwright installed finishing machines in Rawfolds Mill, Liversedge. The workers of the Spen Valley objected. For years the economy of the Spen Valley had been based on the production of handmade cloth.

Cartwright’s machines threatened the workforce with job losses and poverty.

William Hall was a displaced worker who organised a series of Saturday night meetings with a group of sympathisers at the Shears Inn, Hightown, Liversedge.

They ambushed transport wagons at Hartshead, Liversedge and emboldened by this they decided to mount an all out attack on Rawfolds Mill.

Two of the Luddites, Samuel Hartley and John Booth, were critically wounded and taken to two Liversedge pubs, The Old Yew Tree Inn and then on to the Star Inn where they both died.

Two streets in Liversedge, John Booth Close and Hartley Court are named after these two Luddites.

Last week I bought and read Man v Machine, a booklet on the activities of the Luddites in West Yorkshire, produced by the West Yorkshire Archive Service.

To say I am disappointed in this booklet is a mass understatement. This account of the Luddites attack on Rawfolds Mill says: “A meeting was held at the Crispin Inn, Halifax and the Luddites decided they would attack the mill.”

Anyone not familiar with Luddite history would think that Rawfolds Mill was at Halifax! The importance of Liversedge and other towns connected with the Luddites should not be down played.

JOHN APPLEYARD

Liversedge

I had a great time

I WOULD like to thank all my relatives, friends and neighbours and anyone I’ve left out for all the generous donations in lieu of presents on my 80th birthday.

The total amount raised was £290 which will be shared with the National Heart Foundation and the Haemophiliacs Society.

Many thank also to my two daughters, Brenda and Joan, for such a lovely party made nice by the lovely food laid on by the Ponderosa Restaurant in Heckmondwike.

Once again thank you, love you all.

Irene Orwin

Bradley

‘Bloated’ public sector

FURTHER to Mary Blacka’s letter ‘Public payroll’, (Mailbag, April 23).

We’ve had over 65 years of socialism and semi-socialism.

Their relentless destruction of all that is good in this county is their legacy.

The creation of a huge bloated ‘public service’, the destruction of a personal sense of responsibility, duty, honour and patriotism with our vast legion of people on welfare, their indulgence of the feckless, indolent, work-shy and unlimited immigration. Why?

The answer is to create a vast ‘client’ submissive electorate, devoid of initiative and self reliance.

What a good job they have done over the years and what a mess has been created.

Our economy can never recover as the state consumes such a large proportion of the nation’s wealth.

Yet Labour continues to advocate meddle and muddle until we end up like another socialist paradise – Greece.

No doubt they will be voted in again, an example of the triumph of hope over experience.

BARRY FOWLER

Newsome

Nursery memories

WORKING with young children is the greatest job in the world and we think it always has been – but we need help to find out more.

We are holding a Jubilee celebration event in July for our graduate Early Years Professionals and Senior Practitioners and would like to hear from nursery nurses, child minders and early years teachers who trained in 1952 (or the early 1950s).

Please can your readers share with us their experiences of training and working with young children from birth to five years.

We would like to talk with people, record their stories and see photographs and resources that they made or used when working with young children in the 1950s.

We hope to create a display that celebrates Early Years practice ‘then and now’. We know there is so much we could learn.

If you or your relative was a nursery nurse, early years teacher or child minder who trained in the early 1950s, you may want to join us on the evening of July 12 for our celebrations or simply share your experiences with us informally.

Please contact me (or a colleague in the early years team) at the University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, phone 01484 478143 or email j.percival@hud.ac.uk

Julie Percival

Huddersfield

Saving our villages

THE local elections on Thursday are not about national issues, but about saving our villages and countryside.

Moreover, the first consideration is to elect council representatives who truly represent the Colne Valley people and let us choose our own destinies by referendum other than being part of a Huddersfield East/Dewsbury/Greater-Leeds Socialist utopia!

Hence fundamental political change within Kirklees is essential and the word ‘local’ restored to politics, thus reflecting our views and concerns and not the party line.

Thereby we must judge this year’s candidates on their parties’ track records, especially with regards to the Local Development Framework where on March 6 the Kirklees Labour administration supported by the Lib Dems and Independents voted for 22,470 new homes by 2028, many on greenfield or green belt land.

The opposition parties the Conservatives and Greens have indicated they will scrap the current plans and have suggested between 16,000 to 18,000 new homes as a more an appropriate figure.

But there is one vital difference between the opposing camps.

The Conservative option will prioritise our planning futures around brownfield land and existing industrial sites which the anti-LDForganisation Kirklees Community Action Network state there is still 10 years worth left.

The current LDF plans will eventually see our valley’s countryside disappear similar to the dreadful experience of Lindley Moor where local opinion was seemingly ignored by the planning committee’s decision.

And while the anti-LDF lobby has always intimated there is a need for a plan, what exactly is the rush when Neighbourhood Housing is now on the local scene?

On Thursday the people of the valleys must say no to the current LDF and yes to the split within Kirklees as this out of touch council no longer reflects the views and opinions of the Colne Valley people nor is it acting in their best interests.

Where is the increased provision for schools, doctors, dentists, police, public services and even water at a time of government austerity cuts and for the hundreds of Kirklees homes already built?

For this reason alone the planning equation simply does not add up and is severely flawed from the outset, hence the public must vote to save our villages’ future existence.

Alan Knight

Slaithwaite

A great choice

HUDDERSFIELD Light Opera Company chose well for its centenary year.

Me And My Girl, performed at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, was a wonderful, energetic show with a stupendous cast working together to produce such a professional production.

Everyone involved worked with aplomb providing superb singing, dancing and comedy.

It was delightfully staged, expertly choreographed and there was never a dull moment. Outside the weather was atrocious, but inside LBT the sun certainly had its hat on.

Three cheers for HLOC – you certainly know how to entertain. Thank you.

PENSIONER

Thongsbridge