Saturday's Letters: It takes true grit to drive on our neglected wintry roads

Even before getting on to the main roads, East Yorkshire's seem to be the most neglected – whether you take the route to Hull, Howden or even York.

Yet, that very expensive East Riding of Yorkshire Council delivers to our homes their own propaganda free newspaper extolling the award they have been given by Government quangos.

Who supplies the facts to those organisations?

Is it not time that the electorate vote on accolades through an independent organisation?

From: Terry Duncan, Greame Road, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

From: DM Linley, South Milford.

IF I can remember correctly, about 15 to 20 years ago, the farmers did do the snow shifting – and the Government ripped them off over this as well. As far as I can recall, they made a good job, too, not like now when it's not fit to go out. I am sometimes not sorry that I cannot drive any more.

From: Ken Holmes, Selby.

IT'S marvellous how things change so quickly. Not too long ago, owners of four track motor vehicles, the so-called Chelsea tractors, were being branded as enemies of the earth. Now, because of a bit of adverse weather, they have become friends and heroes to many motorists whom they have rescued out of snow and water.

From: Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe Moor Road, Radcliffe.

HOW many people slipped on icy pavements and needed hospital treatment over the last week or so? How many elderly people might now have lost their independence due to broken bones? How many drivers, despite treacherous driving conditions, drove at excessive and inappropriate speeds showing little or no concern for vulnerable pedestrians and cyclists? How many needless collisions were there?

While some people can't survive without their cars, many others can't survive unless they walk or cycle – recession and poverty make it a necessity.

If the freezing and icy weather that we've just suffered was a test for how we would cope with the worst of climate change, then as a nation, we surely failed miserably. We might not be able to say for certain that the weather was a consequence of climate change, but one thing's for sure, there are millions of drivers on our roads who shouldn't be. Their negligence, their incompetence, their disregard for others, has been positively frightening, and without doubt, it has made a dreadful situation far worse than it need have been.

There might be doubts about what's causing climate change, but there can be no doubt we will suffer freezing, icy conditions again, and again. So before we are hit by the next bout, let's set about removing

all the "loose cannon" from our roads: co-operate, communicate and community spirit is surely the key to coping with treacherous weather conditions.

Hunting shows moral bankruptcy

From: Penny Little, Protect Our Wild Animals, Ely Road, Llandaff, Cardiff.

DESPITE her efforts, Kate Hoey does not demonstrate in her polemic ("Hunting long and hard for any sense in this flawed law", Yorkshire Post, December 26) that it is impossible to effectively ban hunting.

She demonstrates that it is impossible to invest the hunting fraternity with the decency to respect the spirit of the law.

Far from there being "no principle in this Bill" as she claims, its clear principle is to prohibit the cruel act of setting dogs on to a wild mammal that, in the course of its desperate and exhausting

attempts to escape, and its violent and brutal death, provides the human participants with excitement and thrills.

The moral bankruptcy of such a "sport" is apparently accompanied by an

arrogant belief among the participants that they are above the law, and thus they exploit every loophole and twist, every nuance of the Act so that they can continue to hunt as if there were no ban – exactly as

they declared they would even before the law came into force.

That being the case, the obvious and logical next step is for the law to be tightened to remove the loopholes which Miss Hoey highlights, and thus curb the behaviour of the hunters and protect the quarry species.

In her article, she says: "....Then comes the difficulty of drafting the Hunting Bill. This was not as easy as might have been thought, given that it is the hound that hunts, rather than the human." This is the self-interested and twisted logic of the hunter.

If a dog savages a sheep, it is indeed the dog that does the savaging, not the human owner of the dog, but the human owner is held culpable in law.

If a man lets his dogs off the lead in a field of sheep, and disaster results, it does him no good to use the hunters' inevitable let-out – ie, "it was unintentional – an accident". The dog owner will be

deemed to have "caused or permitted" his dogs to attack the sheep.

The fact that the hunters have managed to slide out of trouble when their packs of 30-odd dogs hunt a wild animal is preposterous and they know it.

The hunters' constant bragging that the Act is unenforcable only demonstrates that the Act must indeed be strengthened to cater for the fact that their standards of behaviour fall far short of what is acceptable to the vast majority of people in this country.

The Hunting Act will be amended to attend to this anomaly, so long as David Cameron does not get elected and fulfil the wishes of his hunting cronies by overturning the ban.

Birds of prey flying high

From: AM Mitchell, spokesman, National Gamekeepers' Organisation,

Bishop Auckland, County Durham.

IT is good to see Kate Humble, at present fronting an RSPB fund-raising drive, accepting that there can sometimes be a conflict between birds of prey and livelihoods (Yorkshire Post, December 30).

The National Gamekeepers' Organisation (NGO) condemns illegal killing and is happy to endorse her call for legal solutions. That is why we are playing an active role in a formal process, hosted by the Environment Council, which seeks to find a legal way of resolving the problems caused by certain birds of prey when they are present at high densities.

However, Yorkshire Post readers should not be misled into thinking that birds of prey populations in the UK are endangered. In truth, they are at record highs.

Figures compiled by the RSPB itself show that of our 15 native birds of prey, 14 (including the hen harrier) are at or near their highest UK levels since records began.

Only the kestrel has shown a significant decline – and it is very common anyway. It is thought to have been affected by lowland habitat changes.

Expensive train ride

From: Mrs Shirley Sykes, Strother Close, Pocklington, East Yorkshire.

I'M not usually a writer of letters to newspapers, but I feel I must reply to the article by David Behrens regarding trains (Yorkshire Post, November 30).

Last year, my granddaughter, who is at a veterinary college in London, went to catch a train from King's Cross station to York. She had her ticket, pre-booked by her mother, and her student railcard.

When the ticket collector came round, he said she was on the fast train and should have caught the slow train which stops at more stations. He was sorry but she would have to pay an extra 60, even though she said she was only 18 and at university.

It was a genuine error on her part and obviously she will be more careful. Of course, after one term away from home, she had not been a frequent traveller on trains.

Renewable energy surrounds us and should be used

From: Steve Barnard, Sheffield Green Party, Myrtle Road, Sheffield.

PLANS for the wind farm at Sheephouse Heights, north of Stocksbridge, have been turned down. This is short-sighted, especially as the world comes to terms with the failure to get a real deal at Copenhagen and as constraints in oil supply begin to bite.

The anti-wind farm lobby campaign played on Stocksbridge residents' fears but their main argument was about the visual impact. Their model letter for people to complain to Barnsley council said: "The application has significant visual impact... on a tranquil hillside providing picturesque rural views. It is sited in the Green Belt impacting on our rural environment and open space and turbines, unlike the pylons, we can't see through them, they are three times as big and they move." So, in effect, turbines are uglier than the existing electric pylons because they rotate.

The planning board took their lead from politicians who failed to deliver a fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement at Copenhagen.

It is easy for councillors in South Yorkshire to ignore

the science and the global concern if presidents and prime ministers cannot respond to the threat that climate change poses to humanity.

This decision does matter. We could lead the way in Europe on solar, tidal and wind energy to cut our oil dependency and tackle climate change.

Renewable energy surrounds us and it should be used to reduce our impact on the planet. It is a key ingredient for the future to offer hope to our children and grandchildren.

Our good ideas gone to waste

From: Len Fincham, Warrels Road, Bramley, Leeds.

I READ your excellent news feature (Yorkshire Post, December 29) about Sheffield Hallam University developing a new positive fire resistant building material, capable of being mass produced.

We Brits constantly come up with brilliant ideas but, unfortunately, no government seizes the opportunity to support and create a new major industry with all its necessary employment. Remember the Hovercraft? British invention exploited by the US. Yet in days gone by, "Portland" Cement was invented and made a major industry here in Leeds. What on earth has happened to us?

Fish fingered

From: Colin V Campbell, Queensbury, West Yorkshire.

I HAD a pack of "Fraserburgh Smokehouse Cured Smoke Salmon in Scotland" which I have now eaten. On discarding the packaging via my recycling procedure, I noticed that on the back of the packaging it said: "The ingredients in our smoked salmon... are... Smoked

Salmon, contains Salmon (97 per cent), Salt".

It then warned me "Allergy advice: Contains Fish". I am now actively seeking some salmon that does not contain fish.

President who?

From: Roger M Dobson, Ash Street, Cross Hills, Keighley.

IT strikes me that it is almost 12 months since the new President of the United States was sworn in in Washington DC.

Please forgive me if I have been almost asleep for the whole of that time. I am a retired person these days, but I cannot remember much that he has done or achieved in that time.

Was this the one who was going to do everything for everybody and turn the world around to suit everybody?