Thursday's Letters: Let advisers get on with doing the business

Far from it. During my years at Business Link, I have seen so many changes enforced and implemented to suit the politics of the day. The service has had several "masters" – each demanding changes to meet

local and central government needs. It was originally contracted to now defunct Training and Enterprise Councils (TECs) to the Small Business Service (SBS) to the Regional Development Agency – Yorkshire Forward. It was also dealing with other requirements placed by government and the EU, all of which had very few people employed in, or with experience of the private sector, and in my view didn't understand what it is like actually running a business.

The people in the middle trying to "balance the books" between contacted outcomes and what businesses really need are the advisers.

Believe me, advisers are just as fed up with constant policy changes, changes to processes and working with very poor imposed IT systems, but even so the vast majority get on with the job of trying to make a difference – it's why they joined in the first place.

Business Link is far from perfect. Show me any organisation that is and I'll find something that can be improved upon. There are some

fantastic people employed by Business Link with massive experience that is provided free. Publicly-funded business support is needed, but not I believe under the current Information, Diagnostic and Brokered (IDB) format that insists advisers get to know the issues and needs of their clients and then forced to introduce third parties via a crazy imposed system, when implementation could be done by the adviser.

Let advisers who have real business experience get on with what they are good at, reduce the evidence trail and stupid levels of record keeping, and we would have a service that is more efficient, effective and everyone would appreciate much more.

Streamline the service and make it more targeted by all means, but then don't move the goal posts and the pitch at the same time which has been the norm for some time.

From: Ian Rhodes, Farsley, Leeds.

Exchange of memories on French trip

From: David Clarkson, Arkenley Lane, Almondbury, Huddersfield.

I WAS fascinated to read Austin Mitchell's account of his exchange visit to Auxerre in 1949 (Yorkshire Post Magazine, August 21) and it awakened some memories and left me wondering about how the link between Auxerre and Bingley came into being. When I made the trip in 1952, having entertained my French correspondent the previous year, the situation was very different.

That year there were only two of us making the exchange, myself and another boy from Shipley, whose name I forget. I was 15 at the time and we made our own arrangements for getting to Auxerre.

We left from Bradford, catching the boat train from Victoria, arrived in Paris in the evening, found a hotel near the Gare St Lazare, booked in and spent the night there, then the following morning we made our way to the Gare de Lyon and caught the train to the nearest mainline station to Auxerre.

The other boy spent about three weeks in France, but I was there for seven weeks and at the end of the stay, I had to make my own way home quite alone. Needless to say it was an incredible experience, but what interests me here is the circumstances of the trip.

By the time I went to France, Mr Smailes had retired, but this did not prevent his making the difficult journey to visit me in the tiny

village where I was staying. Alan Smailes is mainly known because in 1926, he was instrumental in getting Fred Hoyle (another old boy of Bingley) into Cambridge. He is deservedly mentioned in Hoyle's autobiography.

Although having been a maths and physics teacher, he was also a francophile. I believe (but do not know) that he established the links with Auxerre in the 1930s and they certainly existed before the Second World War.

But this is not the whole story. When it was my turn to go to Auxerre, I received what was called the Andre Hermann Bursary, which I picked up from the hands of the donor in his office in the department store he owned in Auxerre.

This amounted to 5,000 francs (50) which at that time was a very considerable amount (Austin Mitchell talks about the travel allowance at that time being 15). I understand that the award was made to an English pupil of Bingley Grammar School and to a French pupil of the Lyce Jacques Amyot.

What I do not know is why the recipient of the money had to be from Bingley Grammar School and why it was given in the first place. The story I was told was that Andre Hermann was a Jewish refugee who came to England, learned the language, made his fortune and wanted to make some recompense for the advantage he had gained in England. I wonder if there is anyone alive today who knows anything of this story?

Challenges for our future

From: Mark Roper, executive director, CECA (Yorkshire and Humberside) Ltd, Knaresborough.

BUSINESSES and local authorities in this region have been invited by the Government to submit proposals for "local enterprise partnerships" (LEPs) to replace the old tiers of regional government.

The LEPs are intended to enable economic growth by tackling issues in housing, infrastructure and planning – substantial responsibility. If this region is to recover fully from the recession, we need to be able to create real jobs, we need affordable housing and we need a transport network that does not hold business back.

These challenges require action on a grander scale than a single county or borough to genuinely cover what the Government has defined as "real economic areas" but they must be bigger than a single local authority.

If we need to make sure our infrastructure, planning and housing still serves what matters is that LEPs have the potential to be a major force for good in our local communities, but to achieve this local

authorities need to heed Eric Pickles and make sure their proposals are on a scale that can make a real difference.

Keeping the old regional boundaries is not the answer, but let's make sure the new structures are set with some common sense and with an eye on the future.

Fine tradition of cricket

From: Dick Lane, York.

IT is good news that the annual Scarborough cricket festival will continue at least for the next 10 years (Yorkshire Post, August 24) holding on to a tradition dating back to Victorian days.

Rumours, that with the expenditure on the Headingley ground development, first-class cricket would no longer be played at North

Marine Road were unfounded judging by this latest report.

It was reputedly the favourite ground of the first Captain of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Roger Iddison could reach it quickly by train from his home in York.

After his death in 1890 aged 55, his widow attended the festival

fortnight every year with her four children. During play, she took up residence in a small "hospitality tent" at the edge of the ground where she would receive friends and admirers of her late husband.

Decisions that shaped Britain's post-war future

From: F McManus, Longfield Road, Todmorden.

THANK you for publishing my league table of Prime Ministers (Yorkshire Post, August 18) in response to Bernard Ingham's verdict the previous week.

The exercise reminds me of crucial British decisions long ago. Should Attlee have accepted US aid on the tough terms of 1945, involving satellite status? Sixty Tories voted against, led by Bob Boothby, who preferred a commercial loan without strings; also 20 Labour MPs – it is harder to rebel when in government.

Barbara Castle, surely the "best PM we never had" (if supported in the 1970s, she would have warded off Margaret Thatcher), remarked at the time: "It would not have been in their interest to force Britain into a siege economy." A way should have been found between moving to freer world trade and robbing weaker economies of protection.

Then Churchill's "iron curtain" speech at Fulton helped produce an unnecessary Cold War, with anti-Russian fears escalating out of proportion. The last thing envisaged by a USSR which had lost most of the 55 million lives taken by the Second World War was more war in the West!

Nearer to today, the Heath premiership was marred by the strange out of character dishonesty that led us into the EEC (now EU) without a

mandate to do more than investigate. The 1972 European Communities Act contravenes to this day the entrenched 1688 Bill of Rights which bans the delegation of our royal power to any foreign agency.

The Queen, like the rest of us, must have been misled about its scope, else she would have refused assent. Yet, apart from this, Heath was a good PM for a Tory; peaceable and bold in sacking the irresponsible

Enoch Powell.

Destruction of local justice

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

RECENTLY, a lot of fuss has been and is being made about the possible closure of magistrates and county courts in this country.

What is the matter with our coalition Government, wanting to

destroy "local justice" in the areas concerned?

In the event of any court closures, many jobs would be lost with the people involved unable to find new jobs of a comparable nature.

The basic principle of "local justice" is that people accused of minor crimes are tried in the area in which they were allegedly committed by the peers of the accused.

This is because the "peers" have true local knowledge of the area in which the offences are allegedly committed and therefore know of any local circumstances that may affect the issues.

Time for tides to give us power

From: David Gillion, Burbage Close, Dronfield Woodhouse, Dronfield.

I DO so agree with the view on tidal power expressed by CA Scott (Yorkshire Post, August 24). I have long been mystified why wind power gets so much publicity and tidal power so little. After all, we don't get days without tides as we do with wind.

The Government estimates that tidal power could produce 10 per cent of

the electricity required by the UK. Research is well advanced and there are alternatives to tidal barriers. Work has been done on tidal

turbines, somewhat like underwater wind turbines.

Let us have a public debate on the subject.

TV presenters at the wheel

From: AG Marsden, Pledwick Lane, Sandal, Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

WITH reference to PH Green's letter (Yorkshire Post, August 19), a danger he has not mentioned appears in certain TV programmes when a driver turns to talk to a camera while driving.

I have seen it several times, notably CountryFile shown on BBC1 on Sundays.

A car travelling at 50mph will cover approximately 98 yards in four seconds.

As I see it, there is no reason for having a TV camera in a car unless the programme is actually about driving.