IN 1913, my late father-in-law, then an undergraduate at Oxford who wrote to his mother almost every day, could guarantee that if he posted his letter by 10pm at Oxford Railway station, it would be on his mother's breakfast tray in Harley Street, London, by 8am the following morning.

One would imagine that, with all the advances in the technologies of sorting and moving the mail since then, maintaining the standard of service in 1913 to present day customers would be easy.

The reality is the present shambles in which first class mail is not guaranteed to reach recipients the following day, we draw a veil over second class mail, deliveries and collections are reduced or abandoned on Sundays, and local post offices are closed.

The consultations about closure look increasingly like smoke screens to fool the "peasants" into thinking their views are being listened to,
and the outcomes of the exercise affected.

Curiously, the Royal Mail was a success when the Postmaster General was a Minister of the Crown and answerable to Parliament. Now whoever is responsible to the House of Commons is so far below the parapet that I don't know who it is. Can the citizens not lobby their MP from now until the General Election to harass the Government into appointing someone who will put the customer first and get sufficient grip to make the Royal Mail the success it was in 1913?

From: Judith Donovan, chair, Postwatch Northern England.

RECENT correspondence (Yorkshire Post, July 31) has been critical of the current post office closure programme and the role of Postwatch in it.

Customers must understand it is not Postwatch's job to try to prevent all post office closures. The current closure programme is happening because the Government has decided that Post Office Limited cannot go on losing £4m a week, so 2,500 branches must close by the end of 2008. Neither Postwatch, nor the Government, has any veto to stop specific closures; it is Post Office Limited that decides which branches must close.

What Postwatch does is try to ensure that the right closures occur for the right reasons. To date, we have succeeded nationally in getting over 300 closure proposals withdrawn from the programme.

The real issue is not whether any post office closures occur or not. It's about making sure that they happen in a planned and sensible manner to give customers reasonable access to services still and the network the best chance of making itself sustainable long-term.

From: Robert Bottamley, Thorn Road, Hedon, East Yorkshire.

ALASTAIR Cook's letter (Yorkshire Post, August 5) joined others in deploring how the Post Office continually reduces the range and quality
of its services.

Mr Cook's conclusion was that the Post Office might as well abandon its policy of "suicide by a thousand cuts" (along with any pretence of providing a public service) and simply close down with immediate effect.

Your correspondent referred to possible benefits that might be derived from taking this course of action but neglected to mention one particular, important benefit: namely, that it would no longer be necessary to provide the organisation's silent, unaccountable and obscenely overpaid chief executive with his salary.

From: David Wright, Little Lane, Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

MURRAY Naylor (Yorkshire Post, July 31) and your other correspondents who have rightly condemned the Post Office closures have all missed the real culprit behind this disgraceful situation.

Guess who? The EU and Directive 97/67/EC (Privatisation of Postal Services) issued on December 15, 1997. Instructions from Brussels to Foreign Secretary David Miliband (dated November 28, 2007) leaves no doubt that the EU is in control of our postal services.

For decades until the late 1990s, the Royal Mail was an efficient, profitable monopoly providing the finest postal service in the world as well as being an important element in the structure of British life, but once Brussels got in on the act, our useless government acquiesced in this decimation of the postal service.

To make matters worse, the Royal Mail is now a victim to the compensation culture and health and safety police with the recent closure of delivery services to the Dales hamlet of Booze. Do you think the French would allow this to happen?

From: Thomas Pearson, Helredale Road, Whitby, North Yorkshire.

I AGREE with your readers who have commented on Royal Mail's decision to stop delivering to Booze, also some parts of East Cleveland.

I am a postman and deliver to remote places where the roads and tracks are a lot worse than the one at Booze which looks in a lot better condition than some of our main roads.

Royal Mail's proud boast is that we always deliver to the last mile; after all, that is our job.

Publicity like this does not look good for us and it is the postmen and women who have to face our customers and not the job cutting, money saving bosses.


It's time we ended the ragwort explosion

From: SR Hill, Mill Close, Todwick, Sheffield.

HAVING just returned from a 14-day trip to Cornwall and Gloucestershire,and read Bernard Robinson's letter (Yorkshire Post, August 5), I have been appalled at the vast amount of ragwort now flowering, like fields of rape
in spring.

The vast majority is on the roadside verges of every county, most particularly the motorways and major dual carriageways. These latter roads are the responsibility of the Highways Agency.

Under the Control of Ragwort Act 2003, and the Control of Weeds Act 1959, Defra – if a complaint is received – has to serve a notice on the responsible person to eradicate this most poisonous weed which is normally shunned by animals but if cut and wilted becomes palatable. Death is almost certain after ingestion and occurs up to six months after.

The plants are now in flower and each plant produces about 150,000 seeds. It is easy see how this ragwort population explosion occurred. What of succeeding years, the old adage that one year's seeding means seven years' weeding springs to mind.

Great credit, therefore, to the Penzance area authority who had two teams of workmen
out with pick-up trucks full and digging it up by the roots.

Comments from our own local authorities would be most welcome.

From: Matthew Shaw, Golcar, Huddersfield.

BERNARD Robinson's "growing crime" letter on ragwort caught my attention. As I understand it, the plant only becomes harmful when unsuspecting livestock eat it in their hay. Grazers would normally nibble around these impressive weeds, providing a home for the beautiful cinnabar moth caterpillar along with dozens of other insect species.

Bracken is more of a nuisance to our open spaces – this carcinogenic and invasive fern can cause whole swathes of countryside to vanish under a thick green carpet. It has a similar "deadening" effect on landscape to the dreaded conifer plantation, a monoculture devoid of any diversity. Wearing gloves, I've been clearing a patch where I walk with my dog, an area which is fast disappearing under bracken. Underneath was anaemic looking heather which, once exposed to sunlight, has soon perked up and is now displaying its lovely flower.