Cyclists need secure places to leave bikes

It is good to see the needs of cyclists being espoused in your newspaper (Yorkshire Post, June 16) with the call for secure cycle storage space in new homes – and this in the Property Post too, where the usual concerns are for garage and parking space for the family cars.

Modern bicycles are expensive items and a secure storage space is paramount in the household arrangements. A shed at the bottom of the garden, which can be easily broken into, is no longer a suitable option.

At a time when cycling has become a popular means of everyday transport, I would like to put forward an additional plea for secure storage. This is to the owners of shops, supermarkets, cafes, banks and building societies – in fact any place where a cyclist might call to spend money or transact business.

Could you please provide some secure rails or stands to which we could lock our bicycles while visiting your premises? I have often had to defer a visit simply because there was no place to tie my bike – not even a convenient lamp post.

Many out-of-town centres now have cycle racks provided by the local authorities. The best of these is the so-called Sheffield type which is like an inverted U shape of tubular steel. They are strong and firm, supporting the bicycle by the frame, unlike the silly butterfly wing shape racks that hold a bicycle by its wheel and can thereby distort it if the machine tilts over.

So please take note, shopkeepers, cafe owners, et al, and just think how you could encourage cyclists to spend more money with you by giving some secure anchorage for our expensive steeds.

After all, we can no longer be dismissed as among the poor of the parish, just because we don’t arrive by car.

Praise for the Queen

From: Barry Foster, High Stakesby, Whitby.

IT didn’t take Malcolm Naylor long to crawl out of the woodwork with his anti-monarchist views (Yorkshire Post, June 13).

We are, of course, all entitled to our views and rightly so but surely no one can deny the stamina that the Queen and Prince Philip display on every occasion they are seen. The enthusiasm and loyalty to all the Royal Family on this splendid occasion is something the likes of a president will never ever see and certainly not in this country. Could one of these republicans please name anyone who could do the job as well? No, I don’t think so.

Ignoring the black gold

From; Peter Hyde, Kendale View, Driffield.

READING the magazine Yorkshire Vision (Yorkshire Post, June 19), I note that we still have productive deep mines operating but we are told that one may soon close. Why? We are still importing coal and yet all that wonderful black gold sits under our feet.

The technology exists to clean the emissions and only requires investment to develop it to industrial capacity. I find all the talk about global warming somewhat at odds with logic. We are prepared to rely on renewables to supply energy for homes and factories and yet never a word about the millions of cars spewing carbon emissions into the atmosphere, totally ignoring the fact that engines have been developed to use hydrogen to produce power.

Could the reason for this be the power of the oil producers and suppliers to almost dictate policy on global warming to governments?

Church is part of the state

From: Rodney Atkinson, Meadowfield Road, Stocksfield, Northumberland.

IN so many matters which affect the lives of the British people the Church of England, while failing to promote Christianity, promotes politically contentious matters such as wind farms, regional government and the European Union and even fails to speak out against murderous attacks on Christians throughout the world.

But I see the Church establishment has been forced to drop plans for six giant wind turbines on land it owns in North Devon. Angry parishioners noted that the Government was providing (out of the people’s pockets) vast subsidies without which the wind farm would have been an economic nonsense. As one parishioner said: “This is a great moment, it’s a David and Goliath victory. The Church is an enormous institution and a very large landowner.”

Indeed it is and in this as on so many other issues it is on the side of big Government and big money and totally alienated from the flock they claim to lead.