YP Letters: Powerhouse leadership sorely needed in Yorkshire

HOW do we go about forming a “Northern Powerhouse”? Who is going to head it, organise it, register it?

I agree with Tom Richmond (The Yorkshire Post, February 17) that if something is not done soon, we shall miss the boat and lose out on the benefits on offer.

We need some well known prominent Yorkshire personality to bring together the whole of Yorkshire, not separate piecemeal councils and businesses. Someone who has this region at heart and who is able to fight for our rightful share of the pot on offer, people like William Hague, Alan Johnson, Betty Boothroyd or Anne McIntosh, to name some. Come on, let’s have some action and suggestions.

From: Jim Beck, Lindrick Grove, Tickhill, Doncaster.

WHEN it was realised that the transport links between the North-East and the North-West urgently needed improving, it took 46 years from 1770 (The Yorkshire Post, February 18), plus superb engineering skills, to complete the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Is there any chance that the chap charged with modernising the present day rail links over the same trajectory can improve on this time scale? Don’t hold your breath.

From: Roger Backhouse, Upper Poppleton, York.

TOM Richmond’s complaint about London’s recent station openings compared to Yorkshire’s one at Apperley Bridge isn’t entirely fair (The Yorkshire Post, February 20). Kirkstall Forge station is well underway and there are other serious proposals.

For densely-populated London, new rail connections are the only realistic way to improve transport on any scale. In Yorkshire, road improvements remain an option.

Serious plans for a new station at Haxby near York were met last year by several residents writing to their local paper to say they didn’t want such a station.

I understand that some years before a Liberal Democrat councillor in nearby Strensall opposed a station there despite national party support for public transport improvement. Sometimes Yorkshire people can be their own worst enemies.

From: Paul Andrews, The Beeches, Great Habton, York.

I CAN’T agree with Tom Richmond’s view that the Government should be put in the hands of enterprising businessmen. Government runs public services, and while public services should be run in an efficient and businesslike manner, they are not a business and are not designed to make a profit. The attitude of business to public services is that, if they don’t pay, they should be cut. Big business is worse still. They will stop at nothing to get what they want – no matter how many lies they have to tell and how many people have to suffer as a result.

You can call that efficiency, if you like, but then think of the way superstores bully their suppliers, particularly farmers, and how the frackers are bent on ruining our countryside and the property values in it.

From: David Cragg-James, Stonegrave, York.

DEMOCRACY is at stake: this is clear. The Cameron/Osborne views are not open to challenge (or indeed to reason) now the moderating influence of the Lib Dems has gone and Labour slumbers.

Fracking is being promoted, the self-interested views of big business prevailing.

The democratic brake represented by local planning controls is under threat as appeals (by big business) are called in for Government decision.

Controversial government policies are increasingly carried through by Statutory Instrument in order to avoid debate, our flagship NHS is gradually undermined by privatisation, by bureaucratisation, by an attack on junior doctors and on the funding of nurses’ education.

We secure our future in Europe by alienating its leaders with our selfish demands. Why? Ignorance of the facts as frequently presented, ideological conviction or perhaps self-interest?

When will we wake up?

Is this a real consultation?

From: Martin Thomas, Co Chair, North West Leeds Transport Forum.

COUN Keith Wakefield (The Yorkshire Post, February 13) pleads for a new form of Bus Quality Contracts and, in doing so, announces the launch of a public consultation to help draw up a new 10 to 15-year Bus Strategy. Let us all hope that this consultation is better conducted than that for the NGT trolley bus project along the A660.

This was fallacious in concept, approach and conclusion and was shown to be so in the Public Inquiry. Also I hope that the results of the consultation will be published – unlike the 2012 and 2013 consultations on the trolley bus project.

Metro claim that customer dissatisfaction is high, but other independent surveys show that the strong majority of passengers are satisfied with the bus services as they currently are.

Custard conspiracy?

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

SEVERAL readers have mentioned a shortage of Custard Creams, So far, no one has blamed this on some evil EU Directive. Can this be right?