Time for UK to invest in proper snow-clearing equipment

IN years and years of snow conditions, we have obviously learned nothing. And both private and public sector businesses and councils have not and will not invest properly in snow clearing equipment.

The airports are all a disgrace considering the amount of money they make and what they lose in bad conditions.

How is it that over Christmas I got a parcel from Cologne, Germany, on the third day of its posting but English postings were taking at least a week?

On Tuesday, just gone, I received a parcel from Germany, again, bought  through Amazon on Sunday afternoon.

Their airports get as much or more snow than we do. I believe also that it would not have  come through a major airport and was then transported by City Link to me.

So what is different in the small county airports like Robin Hood, Norwich, Sheffield, Liverpool, Luton (not really a London airport) and Stansted, again not really a London airport. Luton and Stansted have very good road and rail links to London and the North. So does Heathrow, but it is the pits.

And now we have Tory blowhards complaining  about high speed rail builds. I bet they all use them when they go up and East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have long needed faster and better rail,  and arguably road links.

The M11 should have pushed on and joined up with the A1M much further up.

One thing I will give the  French. If they decide on a new road or rail, up it goes. No  Nimbys or 10 years of consultations.

I can remember the start of the M1 in north London as a teenager.

All the grumblers went on it as soon as they were able. And what they knocked down on the North Circular Road was not worth keeping anyway.

From: G E Stait, Middleton, North Warwickshire.

THE tiny North Warwickshire village in which I live, is adjacent to the route of HS2. The line corridor sweeps past us, missing us by a mere 100 yards or so at its closest point. Not close enough to place villagers into any compensation category – but fully close enough to blight the environment and transform our village from quiet semi-rural backwater, into a potential development area for urbanisation, warehousing  and industry, as farmland  and ancient woodland is  sliced up, concrete bridges constructed and country lanes made into heavy vehicle highways.

Why so much disruption? Well forget all about the simple twin track, wooden fenced railways that might sit in your imagination – and think instead of motorway sized scar through the countryside – for that’s what high speed rail will look like for all of us along the route. For verification of this, pop down to Kent and take a look at HS1.

But it’s not a motorway, it’s only a railway line, you may think. Well this “railway line” is scheduled to propel 500 ton trains at 250mph, every four minutes, through villages such as yours with all the attendant noise and vibration.

And remember that these new high-speed railways will need extra tracks for holding trains that have broken down and for route link-ups – plus maintenance and servicing depots at various points along the route.

HS2 has all the features that so appeal to governments in trouble. A child could have written the Government spin that surrounds this project. This single railway will apparently “bridge the North-South divide”; “modernise transport communications”; “spread wealth out of London”; and so on. The country can’t afford it? No worries, the costs won’t hit us for years yet. The trains won’t run to the city centre? Well no but the out of city satellite stations will create massive development opportunities. Trains not stopping at major towns along the way?

Of course not – if they begin stopping to take people on and off then the whole project becomes pointless.

From: Coun Symon Fraser, Con, East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

I SIMPLY ask, if the Government wants to build capacity for the long-term and plan for the future, would the billions they are proposing to invest in the HS2 railway not be better invested in providing for improved drainage, flood protection and coastal defences for the UK as a whole?

This would safeguard public infrastructure, millions of peoples homes and workplaces, improving the country’s ability  to produce food, preserving wildlife, enhancing the environment and future  proofing the UK from the effects of climate change.