Monday's Letters: Drivers should take more care to avoid parking penalties

Pat Normington (Yorkshire Post, September 13), who lives in Wetherby, gave details of three tickets she got when parking in Wetherby itself and then asks if readers agree that all three were unreasonable. While having some sympathy for her health situation, I don't agree.

Owners of disabled badges get preferential treatment and, in return, are required to display them properly but two of the tickets were because she had (a) partially covered the badge with a box of tissues and (b) not opened it. The third offence was parking in a permit-only area for residents and she said she was "not aware" of this as she probably didn't think to check for any signs.

I would suggest that she keep her tissues on the passenger seat, open her badge fully and look for the markings and signs that indicate residential permit zones.

Sheila Datoff (Yorkshire Post, September 2), a visitor to Haworth from Canada, decided to park slightly outside the space "to avoid having our car hit by the door of the next car and to let passengers get out on that side". Her car was clamped and she wrote about clampers being "menacing and acting in a distasteful manner", accusing them of waiting to catch "unsuspecting" customers and "innocent" tourists etc. Parking properly would have avoided that unfortunate event.

When clamping soon becomes illegal on private property, the clamping firms are already preparing to move into issuing parking tickets. This is bad news for motorists because no licence is needed to issue tickets as they do with clamping. Kits for DIY Ticketing packs are easily available from the internet and then rogue ticketing firms will start to appear. The clampers and wardens are only being as vigilant as some motorists are being absent-minded, thoughtless and careless with their parking habits.

From: SB Oliver, Churchill Grove, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire.

From: CC Grace, Church Close, Maltby, Rotherham.

IN response to Pat Normington's letter in respect of the issue of unfair parking fines, I would suggest that to incur a fine for not displaying a disabled badge in the prescribed manner may be unfortunate or unlucky on one occasion, but to fall into the same trap three times smacks of carelessness.

A taste of the future for strawberries

From: Dominic Rayner, Gledhow Avenue, Roundhay, Leeds.

RON Farley (Yorkshire Post, September 17) makes a joke about strawberries running about the countryside, but presumably also intends a serious point about the uncertain consequences of genetic modification, and the fears that the phrase "GM crops" seems to evoke.

The point of implanting a particular gene sequence into the DNA of, say, a strawberry is not to make random changes and see whether the fruit might be able to beat Usain Bolt at the 2012 Olympics; just like dog breeders and rose growers have been doing for centuries, the point is to produce a specimen that has a useful feature it doesn't currently have.

Imagine this problem: with climate change delivering drier summers, how are we going to continue to produce affordable strawberries?

The energy needed to supply water to irrigate the crop is too expensive. Left to evolution, it might take 10,000 years before strawberries are able to grow in dry conditions to the size that people like at Wimbledon.

Horticulturalists crossing one strain with another might be able to manage the job in 20 years. A scientist using genetic modification could perhaps solve the problem in a couple of years, so why wait? Is the fruit dangerous just because its adaptation to dry conditions has been managed in a laboratory rather than in a nursery?

If people would rather not risk eating it, then of course they shouldn't. But should that give them the right to stop a farmer growing the crop, or to stop other people eating the fruit?

Unfair trade hits farmers

From: Kathleen Calvert, Paythorne, Clitheroe, Lancashire.

IT is frighteningly easy to be complacent about your future food supply when you have plenty.

The generation who lived through the Second World War value their food supply far more than those who have grown up with a plentiful supply having experienced the effects of a sudden serious shortage of food.

Without its own internal food supply and with a rising world population, the UK leaves itself wide open to serious food shortages and serious price rises in the future.

We may value a holiday, a mobile phone, Sky TV or new clothes; we cannot, however, survive without food.

We hear a lot about Fair Trade, but when supermarkets offer cut-price milk, British farmers bear the cost of this because of the imbalance of power.

Most farmers are paid less than the cost of production for their milk and are loosing money needed to keep their businesses going while retailers and processors continue to post healthy profits in a difficult economic climate.

Hardly Fair Trade and this is putting our future food supplies in danger.

With high business turnovers due to everyday operating needs, each working dairy farm will always return a huge amount of money back into the wider economy, supporting many other businesses especially in rural areas and therefore helping provide jobs for many people. This very important function of British dairy farming is always overlooked.

Statistics over birds of prey

From: Adrian Blackmore, Moorlands Director, Countryside Alliance.

I REFER to the article "Calls for change to law as attacks on birds of prey soar" (Yorkshire Post, September 17).

It has been claimed that North Yorkshire is top of the league for bird of prey crime with 64 confirmed bird of prey persecution incidents in 2009.

The figure of 64 is actually the number of incidents that were reported during the course of last year, and includes those for the East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.

Ten of those 64 reported incidents had nothing to do with birds of prey, and only 11 of these 64 reported incidents were subsequently confirmed. It is clearly that far lesser figure that is important, as any number of incidents can be reported, regardless of whether or not they are based on fact.

The RSPB has also claimed that the upland grouse shooting estates in Northern England and Scotland remain the main problem for birds of prey.

In 2009, of the 268 reported incidents of illegal shooting, trapping, and nest destruction of birds of prey, only 46 were subsequently confirmed, and from figures provided in its Birdcrime report only 16 of those were in the North of England.

None have been directly linked to grouse moors.

Energy threat to national park

From: Joseph Gabbott, Link End Road, Corse Lawn, Gloucester.

MOORLAND Energy has lodged a planning application to build a gas production well at Ebberston in the North York Moors National Park and a gas processing unit – resembling a small refinery – at Thornton-le-Dale, just outside the park

The UK uses 100 billion cubic metres (BCM) of gas each year. Moorland Energy will produce about 0.1 BCM.

In other words, for every 100 spent on gas in the UK, Moorland Energy, if it decides not to export its gas, would supply around 10p worth.

Its contribution to the UK's gas supply would be imperceptible.

As a regular visitor to this beautiful part of Britain, I believe that the disadvantages of permitting this project – the devastation of a landscape abutting a national park and the creation within that

national park of an industrial complex – far outweigh the nugatory gains to be derived from the project.

Let the BBC focus on quality

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

ONE of the best items of news I have come across is that BBC staff have set dates to strike (Yorkshire Post, September 14).

Perhaps now we will get some relief, with one or two exceptions, from the endless "tosh" and repeats being pumped out week after week. I must say that the Corporation is nearly on a par with ITV et al for the moronic drivel we see day after day on our screens.

The BBC was once looked upon as being the best broadcaster in the world, but I think now there are far too many in the upper echelons of the organisation feathering their nests at the licence payer's expense. Let it get back to spending a little more producing quality programmes, what it was renowned for years ago, and spending a little less on obscene salaries and pension schemes.

Our overseas aid could be more profitably spent

From D Birch, Smithy Lane, Cookridge, Leeds.

A RECENT radio documentary revealed that in Delhi, the Indian government has spent hundreds of millions of pounds clearing the shanty towns and building in its place a new stadium/sporting facilities and an athletes village, yet we are still giving this rich country overseas aid.

We have no control of how that money is spent. Why?

The documentary was about the homeless that lived in the shanty town areas, which has been cleared to make way for a showpiece to the world, where they are holding the next Commonwealth Games.

Some of the people that had lived there and were still trying to find somewhere to squat were asked what they were going to do with their lives and what the Indian government had done to help re-locate them.

Some said they were just evicted and had nowhere to go and the police were regularly patrolling the area to move them on.

A spokesperson for the government said that they had been allocated land hundreds of miles away and all the people who wanted to go could do so. Nothing was said as to how they should get there and how they would be able to live. It appears to be out of sight, out of mind.

Some time ago I wrote a letter making suggestions that we should give this overseas aid money to our own industries that could manufacture the goods that are necessary for the people in these countries that need looking after.

The goods could then be handled and distributed where they are needed by non-governmental organisations who would monitor where

they went.

It's money we need to help our industry give us the jobs we need – and everyone involved, from the taxpayer all the way to the poverty-stricken, would be a lot happier.