There have been years of turmoil with closure of industries

THE headline said “Deep cuts threaten years of turmoil in the region” (Yorkshire Post, November 3).

There has been 25 to 30 years of turmoil in the North; some of the MPs that are in Parliament will not remember the large industries in the region.

Around the Yorkshire area there were large coal mines, which in turn supported the railways. York and Doncaster both had large railway engineering shops building locomotives and rolling stock, both now gone.

The railways and mines supported the large machine engineering factories that used to be abundant around Yorkshire, which in turn helped the steel industry of South Yorkshire.

Around Calderdale and Bradford, we had the textile industries.

On the east coast, there used to be a large fishing industry. All now are distant memories.

These industries employed many thousands of workers, who became unemployed. To regenerate just Yorkshire the Government will have to persuade and help manufacturing businesses to return, as this is the only way to get the economy moving.

Large industrial estates have emerged in mining, and engineering areas, why they call them industrial I do not know, as they are distribution centres, and warehouses only. Also, large retail parks which have helped to destroy town centres.

This type of industry only employs a small percentage of the number of people the original industries used to do and earn nothing in export trade.

Supermarkets open and tell planners that it will be good for creating employment but in actual fact the numbers they quote will not take into account the number of small businesses that have to close.

These small businesses that close mean that people are out of work, which makes a mockery of figures quoted by supermarkets.

Government figures show that immigrants take four out of five jobs. The recent figures for unemployment shows more unemployed.

Could this mean that the country has passed the saturation point?

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Acomb, York.

FIRST of all we had the New Labour Government letting in thousands of non-European immigrants on purpose, and now we have the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition Government letting in unknown numbers of illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, economic migrants and potential terrorists “by mistake”.

There was a time when I could be proud of my country. For years now, as each week passes, I just feel more and more fed up and hating what our leaders are doing to this once fine nation.