Investment will pay off for tourism

Welcome to Yorkshire’s positive response to the claims of crisis in the Yorkshire tourist industry (Yorkshire Post. August 20) totally reflect the experience of the Wensleydale Creamery.

We took a decision to invest £800,000 in our Visitor Centre in Hawes at a time when the economy was fragile, to say the least.

This has paid off. The new-look Visitor Centre has been a real success, where Easter saw a record number of visitors, and takings to end July are 41 per cent up year on year.

By making this substantial investment in the Visitor Centre and pro-actively raising awareness of its facilities, we are seeing these positive increases in revenue and visitor numbers.

Welcome to Yorkshire do a fantastic job promoting the region and individual attractions must build on this.

From: Mark S Graham, The Brickyards, Stamford Bridge, York.

I RUN a small tour guiding business – The Original Ghostwalk of York – and have been a member of Yorkshire Tourism for 25 years. Take it from me that the team at Welcome To Yorkshire are second to none (Yorkshire Post, August 20).

It is one of the few organisations that represents the whole of the county without personal gain.

Every year new members demand new things and every year the team invent new ways to attract visitors to our county.

Yorkshire is high-profile around the world. As a destination we are on the world stage and much of that is thanks to Welcome To Yorkshire.

Of course, they do not get everything right but they are prepared to listen. Let’s be clear these are difficult times. No-one gets “owt for now’t” these days. Let’s get behind Welcome To Yorkshire and act together.

Oil wealth and real power

From: George Appleby, Clifton, York.

AS the rebel forces go into Tripoli, the cost of oil has dropped.

Libya has the most oil reserves of any country and its quality is the best. It has been said that Libya has the potential to be the richest country in the world. We also have a very big export market there.

Even so, they will have to toe the line of the International Monitory Fund and the ruthless, super-rich tiny minority of people who control it, and through it, every aspect of our lives, as they do our politicians and governments through fear of what they are capable of inflicting on us.

Our present difficulties are down to them and their minions running the banks holding our diminishing life’s savings and pensions.

Democracy is missing from these areas of power over every single person on this planet.

This urgently needs to be changed by international action.

Practical ways West can help

From: E. Ward, Sycamore Crescent, Bawtry.

I WOULD like to make a point or two about the famine and drought in east Africa. I would hope that some of your readers might help.

Someone mentioned a desalinisation plant which I thought was a great idea. I lived in Jersey for a while and they built one there. Water was exported, and still is. How much would it cost to build one off the East African coast?

My other question, which maybe a professional (doctor or solicitor) could answer, is about tablets.

Every so often, I have to send tablets back to the chemist to be destroyed. The reasons are “out of date, change of dosage, stop taking a particular tablet”.

Is it possible to have these collected on a large scale and sent to the doctors (say in Somalia or other east African countries) who are struggling for lack of drugs?

It seems an awful waste of resources. This happens all over the country – millions of unused drugs thrown away.

Mobile menace

From: David Bowlas, Garners Lane, Stockport.

I READ with interest Tom Richmond’s comments (Yorkshire Post, August 25) regarding the law being relaxed on motorists who use mobile phones while driving.

I walk down one particular road daily on my way to work which takes 10 minutes and the record to date is seven drivers on their phones.

I have seen police cars going in the opposite direction with no reaction from them.

It seems to me that anything that tries to stops drivers doing any sort of illegal activity is met with cries of civil liberties or the AA saying “stop attacking drivers”.

It has come to the point now that cars can park on pavements, cyclists can cycle on pavements and using mobile phones while driving is just another thing to ignore.

Unfortunately it is only the people who lose loved ones through this bad behaviour that get angry.