Small shops are boon to many people

WHAT a silly outburst from Roger Owen. I don’t know whether small convenience stores are profitable or not but I do know that the one in Ilkley is a boon to many people.

Many are elderly, not car drivers, not internet users and find superstores hard work and a smaller local store provides much convenience.

The heavy traffic on the A65 is already making it difficult to get into town without superstores attracting more.

I could agree with Mr Owen re the misting of vegetables which seems an unnecessary move and probably expensive.

Mr Owen’s personal attacks on former colleagues are unforgivable. He may find it difficult for the rest of his life to live with such an action.

From: Mrs P Spencer, Tillotson Street, Silsden, Keighley.

WITH reference to Roger Owen’s remarks about Morrisons (The Yorkshire Post, April 26), particularly his remark about staff cuts demoralising the workforce, I was recently in a local store café where all the drinks machines broke down due to a circuit failure.

It was utter chaos with staff running in and out of the kitchen with drinks.

A gentleman was clearing the tables and I jokingly said: “You’re having fun here today, aren’t you?”

He replied: “We don’t have fun here any more, I just do what I have to do and go home.”

’Nuff said!’

Sympathy for
tragic family

From: Mr and Mrs G Lawrence, Stafford Avenue, Halifax.

WE are parents of four children and grandparents to seven. During their life they have got in to scrapes which have caused us anxiety but nothing compared to what the parents of the accused of murdering Ann Maguire must be going through.

How can any parents come to terms with such a tragedy? Our thoughts and prayers are with all concerned but certainly not forgetting the accused’s parents and family.

Cycling on
right path?

From: Elisabeth Baker, Broomhill Crescent, Leeds.

LIKE Doreen Oldhow (The Yorkshire Post, April 30), I despair at the attitude of those riding bicycles on the pavement.

Quite simply, it is illegal to cycle on pavements. However, if one dares to point this out to riders one is in danger of abusive language in return, at the very least. When one man and what I assume was his teenage son both nearly ran over my dog (who was on his lead), the father dismounted when I remonstrated with them and I thought that he was going to attack me physically as well as verbally.

My cousin broke a toe when she was hit by a bicycle when walking her dogs.

Motorists too are not safe from such cyclists. Those who ride on and off the pavement so as to weave in and out of traffic, or who ride across red lights, would be the first to complain about the driver if a car hit them whilst they were performing either of these manoeuvres.

They give the law-abiding cyclists a bad name.

From: Barbara and Jim Gatford, Grange Park Road, Ripon.

WE were interested to read the various views on cyclists (The Yorkshire Post, April 19), especially with regard to road tax and payment towards the upkeep of the highways (Graham Hall and Roger M Dobson).

From our circle of cycling friends/acquaintances and ourselves included, many, if not most cyclists own a car and consequently are already paying their share. Also, many cyclists are off-road riders.

We agree that there are selfish and dangerous cyclists just as there are selfish and dangerous drivers.

No surprises
over figures

From: Peter Hyde, Kendale View, Driffield.

WE read and are told by the media that the police are failing to record crime. Why the surprise?

They are under-funded and undermannned. We rarely see officers on patrol. We have PCCs who cost money that would be better spent on more officers.

There are just not enough man hours available for the police to investigate every crime so they are ignored or mis-recorded.

As a serving officer of yesteryear, we could properly investigate every crime from theft of milk from a doorstep to murder. Yet we hear the government trumpeting the fact that crime has fallen. It hasn’t. Recorded crime has fallen and now we all know why.

Sympathy
for Sasha

From: Emma Warner, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), All Saints Street, London.

TO receive a medal is small compensation for a life involuntarily sacrificed. Wars are waged by human beings, yet animals can get caught up in them. Animals know no nation and own no weapons, but humans always win in the undeclared war against them. For animals, there are no Geneva Conventions and no peace treaty – just our mercy. Dogs such as Sasha are not instruments of war and are not ours to use and toss away like empty ammunition shells (The Yorkshire Post, April 30).