YP Letters: Why must the motorist pay for potholes?

THE fact that councils are asking for fuel duty to rise to cover the vast cost of repairing potholes in our roads makes me see red. Why is it that the poor motorist is always held to ransom?

Surely we pay enough via our vehicle excise licence to pay for the roads, which is was the reason it was introduced? It is not the motorist’s fault that successive governments have dipped their hands in the till and spent it on other things.

Nor is it the average motorist’s fault that the roads are in such an appalling state – that is down to the number of heavy goods trucks that increasingly are using roads that were never designed to cope with the sheer volume or weight of articulated trucks, especially those from the EU.

As regards the so-called repairs to potholes, I really have to blame councils for the inept contractors and bodges that are used. The other day, I watched a team repairing potholes in the road where I live and it was a case of shovel in a spade full of Tarmac into the hole, loosely flatten it down with a machine and then onto the next. Last time they did these same holes just before winter, the repairs lasted about three weeks. What an utter waste of money!

Government gets it wrong

From: David Collins, Scissett.

I HAVE sympathy with James Mitchinson’s article on Press freedom and new Government legislation (The Yorkshire Post, January 7). As usual, the Government has got it wrong. In fact, it appears the new legislation is more about who pays for the new body than what it does. Unfortunately The Yorkshire Post is caught in the same net as the nationals.

But I have less sympathy for Bernard Ingham’s article the preceding Wednesday. He seems to have totally forgotten that the Leveson Inquiry was set up in the first place to protect the public from out-of-control sectors of the national Press. Not only were their activities immoral but also illegal.

I feel that both Government and Press had hoped that Leveson would go away but luckily not so. There is still time for compromise. But compromise requires both sides to give way. The national Press are as bad as Government in not being capable of compromise.

UK cannot feed world

From: Paul Muller, Sandal, Wakefield.

I HAVE just read Andrea Leadsom’s article “Rich harvest to be reaped for our farmers outside EU” (The Yorkshire Post, January 6).

Apparently we are going to start feeding the whole world. We cannot even feed our own nation from the food we produce. Dairy farmers cannot sell their milk at a proper price and are closing down. Has she never been to a supermarket and noticed all the food imported from the rest of the world? We are a net importer of food. Young people from eastern Europe are helping to bring in the harvest.

No virtue in wind power

From: Ian Hamer, Rastrick.

I SEE that RenewableUK’s Emma Pichbeck is extolling the virtues of “reliable” wind energy again. Whenever the wind drops, other forms of generation have to step in to meet the UK demand. Wind generated just 1.8 per cent of power on Saturday morning.

Sadly, what appears to be missing is using something that is always there, but not developed – tidal power.

Meanwhile, good old coal and nuclear back up the other polluter, gas, which struggles to meet demand, when the heavily subsidised wind blades cease to turn effectively. Makes you think? What have I missed?

Challenge the strange rules

From: Don Metcalfe, former H&S auditor, Southowram, Halifax.

I NOTED in Jayne Dowle’s “Welcome to work experience” column (The Yorkshire Post, January 9) the story about the young girl denied facilities to eat her packed lunch in an eating facility provided by a school.

This denial was done under Health and Safety regulations. What regulation? Is it not time someone’s interpretation of regulations is challenged?

Basic H&S requirements are good and in many cases common sense but I say if it sounds strange, challenge it.

Wrong way to find village

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Ashby.

GRATIFIED as most of us “foreigners” will be with your piece on the Haxey Hood (The Yorkshire Post, January 7) describing Haxey as “south of the Humber and East of Doncaster” is a pretty clumsy way of identifying a very charming village, which has the great good fortune not to be in Yorkshire. Why not say where it is (in North Lincolnshire, near Gainsborough)? Next time someone asks me where Hull is, I shall be tempted to say that it is North of the Humber, East of Market Weighton or that Yorkshire lies somewhat to the East of Greater Manchester!

Twilight’s last gleaming

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

IN his ‘Twilight of the gas lamps’ letter (The Yorkshire Post, January 5), Philip Tordoff states that some lingered on in Leeds into the early 21st century.

Half a dozen or so remain in the green and tranquil Georgian oasis of Queen Square, off Woodhouse Lane, just beyond the Merrion Centre – blink and you’ll miss it!