YP Letters: How Robin Hood Airport could benefit London

WHAT an excellent letter from Dr Brian Robertson (The Yorkshire Post, March 28) on the future of air transport.

Utilising Doncaster Robin Hood instead of trying to bring even more planes into the already overcrowded South East of England is indeed the obvious solution.

If backed up with a new high speed rail link, taking little longer than the utterly depressing tube ride from Heathrow Airport into central London, this would give a real impetus to development in the North.

Sadly this common sense solution is not recognised by the inhabitants of London and the South-East and is therefore destined never to happen.

The letter also served to remind me that in spite of all the hot air about Brexit, our main problem is in fact London and not Brussels.

Brussels does not delay the distribution of farm payments; tinker interminably with our once great education system; propose wasting money on yet another bridge over the Thames; strip assets from Northern Museums or cancel Northern flood protection schemes and desperately needed rail electrification.

The list of Westminster decisions penalising the North could go on and on and one suspects that somewhere in Westminster is a box marked ‘promises’, opened and dusted every Budget and then carefully put away for the next time regardless of the party in charge.

To me, Brexit people shout far too loudly and would be much better employed supporting proposals such as Dr Robertson’s, together with a level of devolution for the North of England, that would at least put us on par with Scotland and Wales and give us regional status so we could do our own talking in Brussels.

EU rules that betray steel

From: Peter Booth, Park Road, Hale, Altrincham.

THE EU rules that prevent the UK from supporting strategically important industries like steel and its inability to stop China dumping its state subsidised steel in the UK are bad for Britain.

In a chaotic world the UK manufacturing base, much of which is in the North, needs quality steel to survive and prosper. We make the best so Scunthorpe should not have been closed and Port Talbot and steel plants in Sheffield and elsewhere must be supported in the national interest.

From: Nick Martinek, Briarlyn Road, Huddersfield.

I CANNOT do better than quote Kate Hoey, the Labour MP, on the collapse of the steel industry: “The EU’s regulations on energy production are killing our steel industry.

“It is impossible for the UK to compete with non-EU countries like the US, where electricity costs half the price, and Norway, where energy is 25 per cent of the UK price.

“They, unlike us, are free from dogmatic, ineffective rules on energy sources.”

Unless something is done to rescue the British steel industry in days, not months, we won’t have a steel industry left. But the UK Government is not allowed to help, by order of the EU. Perhaps we shall have to send David Cameron off on another begging trip to Brussels?

From: Terry Morrell, Prunus Avenue, Willerby.

THE farming industry rightly states that it needs seasonal labour. What is not said is that there is plenty of British available.

If people can travel across Europe to pick cabbages in Lincolnshire, then why can’t the unemployed reclining on sofas in cities such as Hull get off their backsides?

Maybe we should stop paying ‘Job Seekers Allowance’ and other benefits and promote a need to earn a living by ‘need’?

Where there’s a word for will

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Ashby.

THE column on money matters written by Martin Lewis is a favourite read of mine, because it is usually well written and helpful. However I was mildly disappointed at his use (The Yorkshire Post, March 26) of the expression “will-less”

A “dumbed down” step too far for my taste. Surely “If you die without making a will” would have been more elegant. Come to that, what was wrong with using the word “intestate”? Precise and concise, just the way I like it!

Serving the needs of sport

From: David Tree-Booker, Milnthorpe Lane, Sandal, Wakefield.

I WOULD disagree totally with the view of JG Riseley concerning inter-gender tennis tournaments as, on the whole, men are physically stronger than women (The Yorkshire Post, March 28).

This is an evolutionary and biological fact which would place men at an unfair advantage in any clean sporting competition involving strength and endurance. I would, however, agree with Andrew Mercer that if women expect the same prize money as men, then they should also be expected to play five sets in major tennis tournaments.

From: Keith Handley, Scotland Way, Horsforth, Leeds

WOMEN play 90 minutes of football and 80 minutes of rugby, they run 26 miles 385 yards in a Marathon race and play 18 holes in a round of golf. Why, therefore, do they only play the best of three sets in tennis when men play the best of five sets?

Dialect days

From: J Pickersgill, Thorne Grove, Rothwell, Leeds.

REGARDING correspondence on the subject “minning on”. We used to have a “ninning” on between meals and our family still do, but today we call it a “Butter Sandwich”. Happy days.