Independent advice for Cameron

JUST as the Scots ambushed the English at Killiecrankie so Alex Salmond ambushed David Cameron.

Instead of trying to tell Mr Salmond when the referendum should be held and what should be on it, he should have welcomed the fact that Mr Salmond was to fulfill his election pledge to hold a referendum.

He should have told the Scots that we should prefer them to remain as part of the UK but that the decision is theirs and the rest of the UK will respect it.

However, if they decide neither to fully leave nor fully remain as part of the UK under the so called devo-max, then the whole of the UK, including the Scots, would have to be consulted as to whether this was acceptable.

From: GJ Banks, Poplar Drive, Bridlington.

SHOULD Alex Salmond succeed with his ambitions for Scottish independence his epitaph is likely to read: “He divided and weakened.”

Making case for HS2

From: David Reed, Houses Hill, Huddersfield.

MOST of your correspondents seem to totally misunderstand the case for HS2 (Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, January 21).

Although the Government have concentrated on the time savings it will bring (eg Leeds to London in a little over an hour) the true justification is the desperate shortage of capacity we will otherwise suffer.

With the number of people travelling by rail steadily increasing, we will soon be at the point where the main routes from the North to London are full. Unless action is taken, what will happen is what has happened before – people will be deliberately priced off the railways and onto cars and aircraft to alleviate the capacity shortfall.

When our road system ran out of capacity, we did not tinker with the A-road network, we built motorways – two from Birmingham to London. Now we need to build a new 21st century railway line.

Once you have established the case for a new line, the cheapest way to operate it is at high speed. This is because, for any given level of service, less rolling stock and the related staff are needed. And rolling stock is very expensive.

In 20 years time our competitors in Europe, China and Asia will have thousands of miles of high-speed line. And what would we have? A few dozen miles, to take people out of the country.

Do people really believe that by the middle of the 21st century it should still take two hours to get from Leeds to Birmingham? Britain deserves better than this.

Deafening silence

From: David W Wright, Uppleby, Easingwold.

YOUR Editorial (Yorkshire Post, January 14) which highlights the threat of supermarket-isation on small town such as Holmfirth, Malton and now Easingwold, surely must invite intervention by the Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles, who I understand has already been approached by the Malton protesters.

One problem lies with the owners of the land who are anxious to raise money to pay for their growing empires, such as the district and county councils which may account for the deafening silence from the councillors who seem to be torn between their allegiance to the councils and more importantly the electorate – who they ought to be representing, and the independent traders whose livelihood is at stake.

There is a clear case for an independent watchdog to oversee these growing plans to desecrate our small market towns and to ride roughshod over the existing residents, the fragile infrastructure and the balance of independent traders and services.

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

I CAN’T say I am going to lose any sleep over the Tesco Christmas performance. Quite frankly, it does not surprise me.

The number of people I talk to who are sick to death about the way they are taking over this country and turning it into Tescoland is amazing.

Having said that, they must get permission for all their builds from local council planning committee.

Yet 87 per cent of local people simply do not want another supermarket on nearly all the proposed sites.

The Scarborough one was granted on a casting vote by the planning chairman and the way they are pursuing Harrogate, Holmfirth and poor Malton does, to me, display bullying at the highest level. I say enough is enough, as I am sure other people agree.