There’s no more room at the inn

From: Mrs P Stewart, North Lodge Lane, Darrington, Pontefract.

OUR county should be looked on as a hotel – if full “no vacancies”. Colour and race does not come into it.

We are full. Close the doors. Let us then look after all in the hotel.

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Then look at sorting the problems. We are spending money we do not have.

Firstly, is there a need for a high-speed train? No. The time saving is very little. Improve what we have if need be. More would benefit.

Secondly, why build new hospitals when the building, as per Pontefract, was and could have been updated with the interest being paid on a yearly loan? Why pull down perfectly good hospital buildings when they could be used for old people who require care?

We should pull Army personnel out of other countries. They could help at home and enable old people to remain in their own homes.

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With regard to the problem of rubbish, one half day per month schoolchildren could pick rubbish up. That would be a lesson for them to stop dropping it in the first place.

The empty town shops could be used as drop-in centres to teach people how to bake, cook, sew and decorate, grow fruit and vegetables etc.

The amount of employment will never be the same again – technology altered that.

If a person is of school leaving age, they could be placed in the workplace on a one-to-one basis to learn. Any person who has more than one job (at the living wage) should give the extra job up to help others. A higher retiring age is not fair when the young need work.

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Power stations should be kept. We should use our own coal – not rely on wind turbines and solar power which many people say is not good enough.

It is time for action, and fast.

From: Chris Giddings, Springwood Drive, Copley Lane, Halifax.

READING Bernard Ingham’s column (Yorkshire Post, January 15), I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiments of the piece.

An old phrase comes to mind when trying to assimilate the problems which beset us in ‘Great Britain’ today – the rot usually starts at the top. It has been there for years but never more so than in the past 20 years and especially throughout the Labour years of 1997-2010.

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If all the points raised in the column don’t provide a wake-up call to us all, then the future of this nation is under greater threat than most of us realise. Not just from within but from the ever-increasing ring of rules and legislation from the EU.

Fare deal over costs of HS2

From: Howard M Frost, Chellsway, Withernsea.

Re HS2, I congratulate the Yorkshire Post in opening up its columns to all sides of the debate. However, amongst your reports and articles, there seems to be confusion over the cost of the project, with figures ranging from £46m (surely an error) to a staggering £100bn. By January 15, your front page headline had settled for £50bn.

However, the costs have been given as £17bn for phase one to Birmingham and £16.6bn for phase two to Leeds and Manchester, making a total of £33.6bn. At this stage these are estimates which could yet go up or even down when the routes are finalised. Changes in response to objections are quite likely. So, wisely with such a huge project, an extra £10bn has been budgeted against contingencies.

But surely, a contingency fund is not a cost until it is drawn upon. The basic cost to the taxpayer at the moment remains at £33.6bn. It could all change. But it hasn’t yet.

So what about the extra £6bn for the trains?

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The current system is that private companies pay for the trains and lease them to operators, so this should not be a cost to taxpayers. Hence it is usually considered separately from the basic cost.

Government has been funding the 10-year £20bn London Crossrail project out of the transport budget at an affordable £2bn (approx.) a year.

It is due for completion before HS2 gets fully underway and the intention has been to continue to budget a similar amount to fund HS2 over 16/17 years. Just £2bn a year.

Now, more people are calling for the project to be speeded up.

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That could be cheaper, but more money would need to be found more quickly, which might be difficult.

Buck stops with council

From: Bob Watson, Springfield Road, Baildon.

It is not often that I disagree with one of your Editorials, but I must take issue with the one headed “The hole story” (Yorkshire Post, January 14).

This passed comment on Bradford’s infamous hole in the ground, and the fact that Westfield now appear to have started work at long last. The Editorial went on to say that now is not the time for recriminations. But let’s just consider the facts here.

Bradford will have been without a main shopping centre for an incredible 10 years, and yet no one has ever been held to account for having drawn up an inadequate contract, nor foreseeing the problems that could occur.

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Let’s face it, heads would have rolled in private industry through such a shambles, so why not within Bradford Council? It is the same with other local debacles 
in the city in recent years, as 
now encapsulated by the Paul Flowers affair, where the council admitted that it had lied to the Bradford public.

It seems that senior councillors and officers were aware of this, but nothing was admitted (until they had no alternative), and no-one has ever been brought to book. Why does the buck never seem to stop on anyone’s desk within Bradford Council?

Royal power

From: Aled Jones, Bridlington, East Yorkshire.

THIS Government, like so many before it, ensures British people’s rights are pooh-poohed. Why? Because it subscribes to a constitution based on arbitrary, unlimited and unaccountable power – all of which derive from the Queen. It is our right to be able to democratically choose our country’s head of state.