Shop local and walk to high street to combat global warming and obesity – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: RB Peacock, Hanson Place, York.

I FIND it difficult to comprehend the logic of people who go on about global warming and obesity. These two are very much linked. As I see it, sort this out and you’ve solved the city centre shop closures.

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Let me try to explain. We have obese people sat at home ordering from catalogues etc, emailing for groceries, clothes, toys, gardening gear, cars and so on.

Do Amazon deliveries harm the environment and encourage obesity?Do Amazon deliveries harm the environment and encourage obesity?
Do Amazon deliveries harm the environment and encourage obesity?

You name it, and it is to be ordered and delivered next day, or whenever.

If these don’t fit, not suitable et,c then they are returned either by post or collected and all the time the vans are pounding the streets, roads and motorways. Thousands of them, breaking up pavements stopping traffic polluting the air so as you can’t breathe.

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What can be done to boost local high streets?What can be done to boost local high streets?
What can be done to boost local high streets?

Five years ago we had few vehicles down our street. Now it is one continuous stream. The paths need reblocking and curbs realigning – all because these people sit at home getting a size larger. Even their meals are delivered.

Deliveries could be for disabled or pensioners only.

Think of the saving on fuel and air pollution. I am 80 and look to shopping as exercise.

Closing down town centres is making us use out-of-town shopping.

What more can be done to support local shops in towns like Boston Spa?What more can be done to support local shops in towns like Boston Spa?
What more can be done to support local shops in towns like Boston Spa?
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OK, if you have transport, cars and buses can’t be relied on because of congestion.

Get the population moving again, instead of being brainwashed by adverts and shopping channels.

From: M Gee, Knaresborough.

REGARDING those shoppers outraged by parking fines at Knaresborough’s St James Retail Park. I have no problem with the changes at the car park serving the retail park in Knaresborough and think other similar car parks should do the same.

If I need to show where my car or myself has visited, I can use my dash cam or my phone.

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Both show location and time so could be used to counter any claim by a car parking management company claiming I had overstayed. We need to use technology to fight technology! One other more important point is that now the system operates without a warden so no one is enforcing the parking in the disability bays. Lots of parking in those bays by drivers without blue badges. Inconsiderate.

From: James Rogers, Rothbury Close, Harrogate.

KNARESBOROUGH town centre is hell for pedestrians. It’s hell because it is completely given over to the motor car.

And, let’s not forget, that once motorists have parked their car they are pedestrians.

Continuous traffic makes crossing the High Street, except at the two pelican crossings, difficult, and the parked cars don’t help. The Market Place is in reality a car park with a market cross, around which is a small paved area where pedestrians are confined. Worse is the almost continuous flow of slow moving traffic from the car parks near the castle through the narrow streets and the Market Place to the High Street, causing pedestrians to almost flatten themselves against the wall to allow them to pass.

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I don’t know how someone stepping out of one of the shops in Silver Street has not been knocked down.

So let’s make the town centre more attractive to pedestrians by making some streets, such as Silver Street, Castlegate and more of the Market Place, pedestrian only.If motorists can do without the Market Place and Silver Street on Wednesdays, why not on the rest of the week?

From: Frank Farmer, Ferensby.

WHEN the Chinese engineers finish building their emergency hospital in seven days, can they pop over to Starbeck Crossing and build a tunnel/overpass/ underpass or other suitable solution – preferably between 10pm on any given Friday and 6am on a Monday, It would almost be like a recreational weekend for them and it would resolve one of Harrogate’s biggest problems at a stroke.