Drawing the line under road works

FURTHER to your article (The Yorkshire Post, June 6) about a parking bay across a driveway, even worse are the parking bays put on two bus stops on Gorton Road, Willerby, by East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

Following complaints by East Yorkshire Motors, improvements are to be made to the bus stops, which involve building out onto the road, which is likely to result in delays to traffic, as in my opinion there is insufficient width for vehicles to be parked on both sides of the road. I understand that there are concerns about damage to wing mirrors and worse.

Several bus stops do not even have a Tarmac or hard surface and it is hazardous to get off a bus onto wet grass. I am appalled by the waste of money.

From: Bob Watson, Springfield Road, Baildon.

PENSIONER Val Mason is understandably upset that Doncaster Council has painted a parking bay directly in front of her drive (The Yorkshire Post, June 6).

Unfortunately, the response from Peter Dale, the council’s director of regeneration and environment, is a good example of just why so many councils are viewed with such contempt.

The obvious and common sense answer, with yellow lines not being suitable, was for an I-bar to be installed rather than a parking bay.

For Mr Dale to say that parking in front of a driveway is an offence will be no comfort whatsoever to Mrs Mason whenever it happens.

So, come on Mr Dale, simply apply some common sense please, something that should have been used at the outset.

HS2 not good
use of taxes

From: Mrs Sharon Ralphs, Newcastle under Lyme, Staffordshire.

I VISITED York recently and was disappointed to see posters sponsored by your paper with the mistaken belief that HS2 is a good use of taxpayers’ money.

We need an effective integrated transport policy in the UK and £50bn of taxpayers’ money is simply unaffordable. More cost-effective solutions have been suggested but the main political parties aren’t listening and are determined to force this into existence despite the cost and the devastation to a densely-populated island.

HS1, the link through the Channel Tunnel, has failed to deliver on revenue and has been bailed out by the taxpayer.

The benefit to cost ratio has decreased so much that the Department of Transport has now defined it as a low value for money project (National Audit Office, 2012). If high speed rail on a small island is such a good idea, why has private finance not already delivered this?

I would ask The Yorkshire Post to consider alternatives and would like to see a proper dialogue about a network of transport based on real evidence and proper costings.

Looking over wrong Dale

From: Walter Raine, Pennine View, Northallerton.

IT is not surprising that a gentleman from Cornwall feels that he has to correct an error in one of your articles about a location in Yorkshire (The Yorkshire Post, June 9).

One of the latest is in the magazine feature “My Yorkshire” (The Yorkshire Post, June 7), where Ian Wallace leaves Leyburn to walk into Wharfedale and enjoy the view from The Shawl. He could enjoy the view from The Shawl, but he would be looking over the valley formed by the River Ure, which as every true Yorkshireman knows is Wensleydale, where the cheese comes from.

Too much hot
air over gas

From: Liam Hardy, University of Sheffield PhD Student, Wiseton Road, Sheffield.

THE fracking debate seems to be held between concerned citizens (that’s you), the Government, and drilling corporations (who pay the Government to agree with them).

The facts are simple: Fracking will not bring gas prices down (Lord Browne); Fracking wells are noisier and uglier than wind turbines (British Wind Energy Association); we can’t afford to burn 80 per cent of our fossil fuel reserves, so we clearly can’t afford to explore for more (350.org) and the safety of fracking is still in doubt (Channel 4 News).

The debate is loaded, and biased by mainstream media. It’s currently a criminal offence for a company to drill under your home, to extract more fossil fuels in an unsafe manner, risk structural damage to your property, and sell the gas for profit. There’s a reason it’s an offence – it’s criminal!

Lib Dems did not back war

From: Robert Heys, Calderdale Liberal Democrats, Bar Lane, Sowerby Bridge.

CHRIS Moncrieff (The Yorkshire Post, June 5) rightly condemns the disastrous decision of Labour’s then Prime Minister, backed by the Tory Party, to go to war against Iraq. However, in his manifest eagerness to denigrate the Liberal Democrats, the former political editor of the Press Association “forgets” to mention that that party, alone among its contemporaries, actively condemned the aggression.