Making room for cyclists

From: Gerald Hodgson, Spennithorne, Leyburn.

THOUGH a cyclist myself, I sympathise with Keith Sturdy in his problem with ill-disciplined cyclists on footpaths (Yorkshire Post, May 12).

However, I think highway authorities could take a much more proactive view of the use of footpaths for dual cycle and pedestrian use. In towns, where the pavement width allows, a strip could be marked for cycle priority use. Outside town centres there are thousands of miles of practically unused footpaths which could simply be designated for dual use by cyclists and pedestrians.

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Cyclists ride on pavements because of the dangers of sharing the cariageway with motor traffic and in this country we have been seriously negligent in making provision for them. Contrast the Netherlands where vastly more people use bicycles for short journeys resulting in less traffic congestion and better public health.

No sympathy

From: Michael Booth, The Birches, Bramhope.

SO Eric Illsley regards himself as a scapegoat because he was one of only a very few MPs to be prosecuted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for submitting false expenses claims (Yorkshire Post, May 14).

Forgive me for not feeling sorry for him. In my view, he should feel very lucky for only having to serve three months of a 12-month sentence. I can, however, understand his annoyance at being one of only a few MPs to be investigated and prosecuted when, as he said, he was only doing what others did.

I don’t doubt that he is right in that respect, but even so, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Self-service

From: David Nash, Scarborough Road, West Heslerton, Malton.

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REGARDING the archive picture of the grocery shop in Dewsbury (Yorkshire Post, May 13), you were somewhat off the mark with the statement that “there were no self-service counters” back in 1970.

I certainly remember shopping in such a shop at least a decade before. According to the archive section of the J Sainsbury plc website, their first self-service store opened in 1950. Not quite the “super stores” we have today, but certainly self-service.