Pound down after poor investment

NOW that the CEO of Leeds and Partners has announced she is leaving her post, it is time for Leeds Council to completely rethink how it spends council taxpayers’ money on this policy.

At a time when local authorities are being systematically starved of funding, we must question whether the £1.93m the council spent in the last financial year on Leeds and Partners is a good use of public money.

Unison believes the council should now bring Leeds and Partners under the control of the Local Enterprise Partnership (The Yorkshire Post, October 4).

Leeds and Partners have operated as an autonomous body, despite being publicly funded, with little or no accountability.

This is an opportunity for the council to completely reassess how investment is attracted to Leeds and how much money is diverted to it from elsewhere.

We believe that Leeds and Partners should not recruit a replacement chief executive, and that the council should take a far more hands-on approach to organisations which they directly fund and who spend such large sums of public money each year.

For openers, forget Boycott

From: Peter Denton, Anlaby Common, East Riding.

IS William Hague “our greatest living Yorkshireman?” Probably not, but I cannot understand why there is so much support for giving the accolade to Geoffrey Boycott. What did he ever do for Yorkshire?

He was captain of the greatest county club in the history of the game from 1971 to 1978 and they won nothing.

He appeared to play solely for himself.

Also, his roots are not in Yorkshire, his father coming from Shropshire, so can he be classed as a proper Yorkshireman?

From: Stuart Kennedy, Northowram, Halifax.

GEOFFREY Boycott may have been a candidate for “greatest living Yorkshireman” until he included himself on his list. Massively arrogant.

From: Derek Hollingsworth, Darton, Barnsley.

BILL Carmichael (The Yorkshire Post, October 3) adds some worthy names of great Yorkshiremen and Yorkshire women to this debate.

Two great Yorkshire women who surely should be on such a list are Dame Janet Baker and Dame Fanny Waterman.

Both are internationally famous far beyond the Broad Acres.

Wrong to take aim at Assad

From: John Riseley, Harcourt Drive, Harrogate.

with Turkey agreeing host nation support and basing for coalition forces, this could give not only a shorter round trip for our fast jets, it might also allow the deployment of attack helicopters and perhaps even air-mobile ground forces. This would offer the potential for greater military effectiveness together with lower collateral damage.

We must, however, resist pressure for the sort of moves against Bashar al-Assad which the Turks may wish to see. We can be in no doubt about the consequences of creating a power vacuum. It would be wildly optimistic to assume that efforts towards a democratic alternative will not now result in an Islamist takeover.

Unpalatable as many find the continuation of the Assad regime, the cost in lives and suffering of the war to overthrow it already greatly outweighs the benefits of succeeding.

From: Edward Dale, Durban, South Africa.

I PREDICT that within five years, Isis will have taken over significant parts of the Middle East, applying Sharia Law. The Tornado jets will be back in their hangars, and British Parliamentarians will once again turn their backs on yet another disastrous chapter in British foreign policy, nothing having been achieved.

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

IF these “jihadists” consolidate with more followers, and I think there are plenty, and put foot in Southern Europe, a few state boundaries are not going to stop them. After all that is what they did 2,000 years ago.

From: Iain Morris, Caroline Street, Saltaire, Bradford.

BELIEVERS are not exclusive to any one religion.

Smokers who ignore the law

From: Mr S Moore, Todmorden.

IT must happen all over but I can only speak for where I see: Todmorden. Every time I pass through the bus station there is someone smoking (usually just tobacco) despite the signs all over the place saying “It is against the law to smoke in these premises”.

They couldn’t give half a you-know-what. Often the type of person who does this looks as though they would be aggressive or abusive if approached about it too. First’s bus drivers just walk straight past them; they couldn’t care less. How about some enforcement from somewhere instead of slack, illegal operation of public premises?

Time for some “on the spot fines” please. That would pay a warden’s wage.