YP Letters: Banking on the wrong side of the Yorkshire border

From: Chris Gaunt, Hebden Bridge.
Yorkshire Bnak has been criticsed for shutting local branches.Yorkshire Bnak has been criticsed for shutting local branches.
Yorkshire Bnak has been criticsed for shutting local branches.

YORKSHIRE Bank is sending out letters to customers of their Todmorden branch (in Yorkshire, despite the postcode), telling them of its imminent closure and that the accounts will be moved to Burnley (in Lancashire, of course).

This is particularly galling for customers such as ourselves (Jayne Dowle, The Yorkshire Post, January 23) who used to bank at their Hebden Bridge branch until it closed in 2005, when our account (and sort code) was moved to Todmorden.

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They appear to be basing their decision on the proximity of Burnley to Todmorden rather than on the proximity from the original branch or where the account holders actually live.

The Halifax branch is over four miles closer than Burnley. Even Keighley is closer than Burnley, and neither are in Lancashire. Being a proud Yorkshireman, I don’t want to bank over the border. You’d think the Yorkshire Bank would understand. We hardly ever go to Burnley, whereas we often go to Halifax. We believe that many former Hebden Bridge customers will be unhappy at this move.

Of course, I do use internet banking, and know I can go to any branch or even the Post Office, but that’s not the point.

From: Malcolm Wright, Harrogate.

AS always, Jayne Dowle presents a well-reasoned column as banks close and “they” try to dragoon every last one of us into their screen-obsessed world (The Yorkshire Post, January 23).

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As “they” sweep the planet with super-uber-megafast broadband, is there a chance that barking, squawking, scrolling, texting obsessives might meet themselves coming back; or even – please–- disappear up their own fundaments?

More hot air over climate

From: Ian Conlan, Middlecave Road, Malton.

THE Government has tried to bury a report listing the threat to food security as a key concern as climate change and extreme weather affects us all.

In our area, INEOS, which wishes to frack Ryedale, fails to draw attention to the news that last month it took over Moorland Energy, which has a licence to extract oil and gas across the southern end of the North York Moors.

It also inherits the outstanding planning permission for a gas processing plant at Thornton Dale, which even fracking supporter Lorraine Allanson publicly opposed on two occasions in this paper.

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Yet fracking requires just such unsightly, smelly gas processing plants, plus noisy compressor stations, pipelines, thousands and thousands of lorries, and thousands of wells, which could be sighted right next to, and drilling under, the North York Moors National Park from this licence area.

Leaking unburnt methane is 84 times more potent that carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. With renewables now increasingly undercutting fossil fuels on cost, and green gas from food waste increasing, there has never been a better time to rise up and peacefully defend our communities.

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

WHEN it became obvious, a few years ago, that Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) was an ongoing hoax, many sceptics wondered how the self-styled “consensus” (as peddled by the BBC) would get out of the hole it had evidently dug for itself. We even expressed concern that science itself was becoming “post-truth”. What would happen?

Few could have anticipated that the “consensus” solution was to re-write history, claiming they had never lined up in support of the CAGW theory in the first place. Indeed some in the “consensus” now even contend that CAGW is a just a “snarl” word used only by “deniers” to discredit “the science”. The truth is the entire UK politico-industrial complex is driven by this alarmist fear of a future climate catastrophe caused by man-made carbon dioxide created by burning natural (sorry, “fossil”) fuels.

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The alarmists cannot have it both ways: either CAGW is true or it is not. And since it is not, as even the alarmists have apparently changed their minds, then our Government should repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act, saving the taxpayer billions.

That would revive our industries, such as steel and aluminium, by cutting our electricity costs in half which can only occur when “renewables” subsidies are eliminated and we revert to much cheaper gas and coal-fired generation.

Practical skill

From: Coun Tim Mickleburgh (Lab), Boulevard Avenue, Grimsby.

I AM pleased that the focus in future is to be on more practical education. We used to have a good network of polytechnics, with their close links to the work of work. However, all became second-rank universities. Perhaps it is time to repolytechnicise them?

Feeble Marr

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington.

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WHY was the BBC’s Andrew Marr so feeble when he failed to press the Prime Minister (The Yorkshire Post, January 23) on 
her knowledge of the Trident failure?

Ugly dramas

From: Janet Berry, Barfield, Hambleton.

HOW ugly was part one of the new BBC1 Sunday night drama Apple Tree Yard? Sleazy sex in sordid surroundings with a sleazy man. And was the violence really necessary in my favourite programme, Call the Midwife? I don’t think so. I do hope they do not spoil this gentle drama. Hardly appropriate Sunday evening viewing!