Small shops and businesses are at risk of disappearing under pressure from large retail centres and out-of-town retail parks, along with the closure of post offices in such places like Wetherby and Ripon, and across the Pennines and Dales, being part of the Yorkshire that we all love and don't want to disappear. I wonder whether this is a U-turn, a late conversion, a memory loss or simply political expediency.

Meadowhall, the Metro Centre and other such places were well-established long before the Labour Government was elected. Not only did the Conservatives close many post offices, they were responsible for the post office losing many of its profitable services, leaving it with the fixed price, local delivery service as the main source of revenue, a service to which was never cost-effective.

As for Yorkshire disappearing, Yorkshire consists of a great deal more than the Pennines and Dales.

I come from a part of Yorkshire where the Conservative government destroyed whole communities.

In considering what is wrong today, we should never forget what has happened in the past.


Use cameras in fight with dog fouling


From: Ken Dresser, Burcott Garth, Hull.

I WOULD like to respond to your article regarding the protests against town councils using surveillance equipment against people who allow their dogs to foul on public places (Yorkshire Post, April 28).

Anyone who has had the displeasure of having to remove a dirty, stinking mess from their footwear would agree with any method of finding the irresponsible people who allow their dogs to defecate on pavements and grassy areas.

Some take their dogs to areas like this for the sole purpose of the dogs relieving themselves.

Most people will have seen respectable looking people take their dogs to the edge of grassy areas and take the dog off the lead and then allow them to run around and defecate wherever they like. Some clean it up, the majority don't.

The usual comments come from the usual people. Simon Davies (Privacy International) calls it snooping. Shami Chakrabarti (Liberty) calls it snooping. Excuse me, but does privacy and human rights give people the right to break the law in this respect?

I would like to ask Mr Davies and Ms Chakrabarti how often they have walked into someone's house and spread dog muck all over the living room carpet?

Clean sweep in hospitals

From: Ann Keen MP, Health Minister.

YOUR comment on hospital hygiene (Yorkshire Post, April 25) was poorly researched. Far from being the Government's only response to tackling infection and improving cleanliness in hospitals, as implied, deep cleaning is one of a whole raft of measures that we have taken, from pre-screening patients for MRSA to the recruitment of 3,000 additional matrons.

Furthermore, the measures you call for are already in place. Since 2006, NHS trusts have had to comply with a Hygiene Code which has legislative force and all hospitals are being inspected against the code this year by the Healthcare Commission.

The most recent figures show a 30 per cent reduction in MRSA cases compared with the same quarter last year and numbers of Clostridium difficile infections are also down significantly. However, one case of avoidable infection is one too many and I have made it clear that we expect the NHS to make full use of the resources at their disposal to eradicate avoidable infections.

Health closure

From: Frank Pedley, Gisburn Road, Hellifield, Skipton.

YOUR account of the closure of "a hospital" in the Settle area, as represented to you by their parish priest of Settle, gives a wholly inaccurate impression of the true situation (Yorkshire Post, April 24).

The "hospital" is, in fact, one large ward at Castleberg Hospital, Giggleswick, which has been closed temporarily in order to carry out repairs. Over the years, Harden Ward has earned the affection of local people for its sympathetic role in very difficult circumstances – just as "cottage hospitals" always did.

Even though its official purpose is as an "intermediate" hospital its role expands to whatever obvious need arises. No one, therefore, would ever wish to remove this facility from the people who appreciate it
so much.

The problem arose partly because only short notice of the temporary closure was given, and this in turn probably occurred because of the very recent merger of the local Primary Care Trust to form a single large trust for North Yorkshire and York. But those who dislike any authority but their own have been in full cry, and have sown the seeds of distrust in the PCT, even though its chairman, Brigadier John Wardle, has assured the public that the facilities offered by Harden Ward will be retained.

A wasted effort

From: DM Loxley, Hartoft, North Yorkshire.

I HAVE just received five leaflets, with covering letter, from the waste policy officer for North Yorkshire County Council which give "guidance for use of household waste recycling centres".

They do not grab one's attention nor excite the mental faculties, but they do cause a degree of contemplation.

The result of such Confucian deliberation is that there is a distinct likelihood that fly-tipping will be of great concern in the near future.

Not because the guidance is so restrictive or bureaucratic, I am sure it will be, but that the patience of people will be overwhelmed by the sheer entanglement of the rules of who can do what, with what, when, where and how.

Another example, it seems, of producing documentation to follow government policy without necessarily getting anything done.