Claim doesn’t hold water

RICHARD Flint’s letter (Yorkshire Post, February 2) explaining why Yorkshire Water are increasing its prices by 6.1 per cent when Ofwat’s recommended rise is 5.7 per cent is typical of a chief executive’s PR exercise to justify what has now become an annual event, like Easter.

As Yorkshire Water are celebrating 22 years of existence, they and their shareholders want all customers to join the celebrations by paying an inflation-busting £22 increase in their bills. If Yorkshire Water had kept to the 5.7 per cent Ofwat recommendation, it would have made history. It would have been the first utility company to listen to its regulator.

EU using crisis to its own ends

From: Arthur Quarmby, Holme, Holmfirth.

THE EU is predictably seizing the opportunity presented by the financial crisis to advance its ultimate project, by taking control of the financial affairs of member states. Could this be the same EU whose own financial failings have been blatantly swept under the carpet for the last 19 years?

From: Dennis Whitaker, Baildon, Shipley.

IN my view, with rights, go responsibilities. Should it not be the duty of a pragmatic government to introduce into the Statute Book a law which requires people wishing to invoke the Human Rights Act to act responsibly in the first place? Since this legislation is imposed upon us by the EU, they too, must act responsibly – or lose (even more) credibility.

Olympic display

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Bradford.

I HAD the amazing experience as a 13-year-old schoolboy of seeing Anita Lonsbrough demonstrate her swimming abilities at our local pool in Bingley after she won her gold medal at the 1960 Olympics (Yorkshire Post, January 31). I saw her from the balcony swim the 25-yard pool in just a few strokes with incredible power.