How Yorkshire Bank will count the cost of name change for brief gain – Yorkshire Post letters

I HAVE to say that I am fully supportive of Jon Marcus’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, July 3) about Yorkshire Bank’s naïve business decision.

Scandalous Yorkshire Bank name change is snub to loyal customers – Yorkshire Post letters

I am also a longstanding customer of Yorkshire Bank, having started a savings account at school at the age of 10 more than 60 years ago.

Friends and family have also joined the bank on the back of my relationship over the years.

Mark Casci: What the axing of Yorkshire Bank means for the future of banking

The decision by CYBG Group to combine the group’s long established main brands under one Virgin Money name can only be described as naïve at best, and a very bad business decision to get rid of a pair of rock solid banking brands purely for short-term minor gain to cut costs. When will they learn?

The true value of Yorkshire Bank brand – Yorkshire Post letters

What a stupid decision to throw away the most valuable parts of the bank’s business and goodwill to the point of damaging the customer relationships and prompting many customers to look to change banks.

Yorkshire is a brand in its own right recognised throughout the world as a positive and reliable place to be, and I predict that they will regret this decision for a very long time; that is, of course, if Virgin Money survives.

From: Mr Bryan Smith, Quarrie Dene Court, Leeds.

LIKE many, my introduction into banking was the School bank. We took our 12-sided threepenny bits to school, each Monday morning and had the amount diligently entered into our little blue ‘bank books’.

That was 75 years-ago and the bank was The Yorkshire Penny Bank, to whom I have been loyal – until recently. Enduring puerile ‘surveys’ and branch closures, ours became a Starbucks, we have been systematically deserted, sold up the Swannee.

It is too late to save the Yorkshire Bank, we lost it via Australia and Scotland some years ago, but the final straw, to sell out to a long-defunct record store, who may (or not) run trains, is totally unpalatable.

Tackling a weighty issue

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

ANOTHER thought-provoking column from Christa Ackroyd (The Yorkshire Post, July 3). Well done. At least she accepts the problem, as many people do not. I well remember, as a young schoolboy, being bullied by a classmate because I was a “fattie”. Not for long may, I add. My decision was to do something about my weight and I did.

For all my adult life I have kept a close watch on my weight, which has been rewarded with normally having a decent weight. Even with a spinal complaint for a number of years, I walked every day and still do at the age of 80. You have to decide just what to do when the weight gets too much.

Hundreds of people walk around each day obviously overweight eating pies, sandwiches and lots of fattening food. Why? Just walk.

Sir Gary’s skills are missed

From: Edward Grainger, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

BY all means tighten the operating and financial rules under which Welcome to Yorkshire operates, something that ought to have been done from the very beginning, but please don’t kick a good man in former chief executive Sir Gary Verity (The Yorkshire Post, June 29) when he’s down.

What has gone on within the organisation is not something that concerns me, but the clear loss of Sir Gary’s entrepreneurial skills is the thing that matters most to a county badly in need of leadership and direction that ‘One Yorkshire’ would have benefited from.

Sir Gary’s place in the unique history of tourism in Yorkshire is assured and his large part in promoting this county to a wider audience will not be forgotten.

Ban gambling advertising

From: Bob Watson, Baildon.

FIVE of the UK’s biggest gambling companies have committed to a series of measures to address problem gambling (The Yorkshire Post, July 3).

As part of this, they are to increase their financial support for safer gambling from 0.1 per cent of their gross income to one per cent by 2023.

Now this might sound wonderful until one considers just why they might be doing this. They are all, of course, petrified that there could be a total ban on television, radio and online gambling advertising, coupled with bans on touchline adverts and sports shirt sponsorship.

Frankly, in my view, it is way past time for all the above to be implemented.

Football too prevalent

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

IT’S July 4 and Yorkshire have just finished their first game at Scarborough this season, while England are looking forward to a World Cup ODI semi-final. So I go past a local school playing field and what do I find? That’s right, they are all playing games of football! But why not cricket?

I played cricket at my local middle school, as did others. I realise fields have been sold off by governments over the years, but the fact that I saw pupils on their own school field means that can’t be used as an excuse. Really, I think football is too prevalent these days at all levels. It certainly shouldn’t intrude on the short time students have to play cricket, given the August holidays.