More roads could lead to a dead-end

MORE roads to “build for the future”? What on earth is David Cameron talking about? Of course we should maintain the roads we have, but his cuts are forcing local councils to cut back on this. Of course, we should use innovation to help create an economy fit for the 21st century, but what has building more roads got to do with that?

We know that more roads mean more traffic; we know that oil reserves are reaching their peak and that energy prices will rise as oil and gas get harder to extract; and we know that traffic is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. How does doggedly clinging to our love affair with oil prepare us for a future with much less of it?

Britain has the potential to lead the world in off-shore wind technology.

Yet Cameron is set on throwing it all away by reviewing Government support and creating uncertainty amongst investors, while fiddling with counter-productive private roads and pouring billions into subsidising oil companies. At this rate the self-proclaimed “greenest Government ever” will go down in history as the Government of missed opportunity and gross irresponsibility.

From: Paul Bates, Bowden Wood Crescent, Sheffield.

DESPITE the item in your post-Budget report (Yorkshire Post, March 22), I can assure your readers that the railway line through the Hope Valley, in north Derbyshire, is not to be electrified!

The upgrading to be undertaken is the replacement of the early 20th century semaphore signalling with modern electronic colour light signals, resulting in an increase in capacity for the line. No mention has been made, I believe, of the finance required to provide the train sets need to take up this increased capacity.

From: Mary Fox, Clarence Drive, Filey.

WITH reference to the front page article (Yorkshire Post, March 17) and the forgotten victims of recession, Mike Padgham, UK Homecare chairman, says: “There are celebrities jumping up and down about libraries closing but young is viewed as good, old is bad.”

If Mike made a visit to our library, he would find a good mix of both; kind librarians who take an interest in all their customers’ welfare and we of mature years get good company, can read the papers, have a hot drink and mix with the children who become our friends.

The young ones will also deliver our books. A good mix, don’t you think? Keep them open please.

From: A.W. Clarke, Wold Croft, Sutton on Derwent.

I HAVE been puzzled for some time why, living as I do, in a small village with no council run facilities, we are expected to pay more council tax than our fellow citizens in the affluent suburbs of Hull. I have friends and relatives in leafy areas of Anlaby, Kirk Ella and Cottingham, all of whom have easy access to public transport, police, shops and theatres etc. without any of the accompanying difficulties that might be met in the inner city areas and yet their council tax is lower than ours.

I have no complaints about my village and would not choose to live elsewhere but would welcome an explanation of why this should be.

The police precept is the most confusing as the sight of a policeman in this area is quite remarkable as we found when the Sutton Bridge was closed to HGVs, but the warnings, which were largely ignored by the lorries, went on their way unhampered by the police.

From: Janet Berry, Barfield, Hambleton.

A BUSINESSMAN points out that his business turned over £90,000 of which generated £60,000 in VAT, £50,000 in PAYE and £37,000 in corporation tax earning £147,000 in taxes for the government.

He personally earned £72,000 for working 70 to 80 hours weekly with two weeks holiday. He questions whether he should carry on working so that the state can get twice as much as he does especially when they can arbitrarily change the pension rules.

Hardly fair is it? I think many people in business are asking the same question.