What’s Leeds got against Wakefield?

NOW the inquiry lasting two weeks at Wakefield Town Hall on the city of Wakefield’s proposed new community sports stadium has come to an end.

Would Leeds Council leader Keith Wakefield like to tell the people of Wakefield why Leeds City Council objected to it being built?

Wakefield Council passed it unanimously so what’s it got to do with Leeds? The residents of Wakefield and other surrounding towns are sick of people like Councillor Wakefield (what an unfortunate name) banging on about the Leeds city region. Who dreamt that up?

Would Coun Wakefield through your paper like to explain how Wakefield’s proposed state of the art new sports stadium off Newmarket Lane was once part of the Leeds 2018 World Cup bid linked to Oulton Hall for the accommodation of World Cup teams? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

One of Coun Wakefield’s objections was that it was a conservation area for wildlife including otters. Last year a friend and myself decided to walk around the area to see where the proposed development would be.

We were shocked to see a foxhole dug out by the farmer and two adult foxes along with their two cubs shot through the head draped over the top of a hawthorn hedge.

So much for the conservation area, and as for the otters the nearest we saw was an old rusty kettle thrown amidst illegally dumped tyres, household waste and garden rubbish dumped by flytippers, also half a dozen travellers’ vans.

Would Coun Wakefield like to tell the good ratepayers of Leeds how much money has been spent fighting this cause?

The people of Wakefield, the fans of the Wildcats and all the sports clubs of the surrounding district, and in particular the ratepayers of Leeds can’t wait to hear the answers to these questions.

Labour shares blame on care

From: Malcolm Naylor, Otley.

THE latest report into the escalating cost of care should be taken not only as a criticism of the Con/Lib Dem coalition but also the Labour party who were the primary architects for care charges based on privatisation and means testing.

For those with short memories – when Tony Blair came to power the very first thing he did was attack the disabled. And Labour is still at it. In 2006 they introduced what they euphemistically called “fairer charging” supposed to end the postcode lottery of charges but was really an excuse to privatise, cut and means test care.

To this day charges range from £20 an hour to nothing and this is a measure of Labour’s sincerity in ending the postcode lottery. In Tower Hamlets and Scotland care is free.

Therefore blame lies squarely with Labour and Leeds City Council’s Labour Group who ignored protests on the basis of a flawed consultation.

And the Con/Lib Dems, who should never be trusted on anything to do with health, care and education, increased costs to pay for the profit and bureaucracy of private companies, Leeds Council and a Care Quality Commission.

Some service users in Leeds are charged £16 per hour while carers who actually do the work get little above the minimum wage. The difference ending up in the pockets of bureaucrats. And under Labour, the numbers receiving care has fallen from over 22,000 to around 6,000. So Labour should remember that those who live in glasshouses should not throw bricks.

Spotlight on danger drivers

From: SB Oliver, Churchill Grove, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire.

I CAN assure Peter Hyde (Yorkshire Post, December 31) that his despair about drivers using inadequate and/or defective lights, as well as those not clearing the whole ice from front windscreens or tailgating, is not confined to just his region of East Yorkshire.

They are everywhere, roaming the roads, ad infinitum, in the bad weather and during dark times. They are probably the same thoughtless drivers that don’t clear the rear windscreen either, but rely on the rear windscreen demister to do it over the next 10-15 minutes.

They will also probably be the same ones that, during (and after) bad weather, they drive around with the number-plate blackened with mud and grime for weeks.

Regarding the sidelights/headlights subject, his example of grey cars on just sidelights is valid but also applies to all vehicles. Those drivers obviously don’t (or can’t) understand why more than 90 per cent of drivers use headlights at night or in bad visibility.

There are millions of road users, drivers and pedestrians, that are over 50, at which age the eyesight is not as sharp or responsive as it used to be, so being seen is the priority for drivers.

Regrettably, it is not against the law to drive on just sidelights, as I think it should be.

The winter months should be a “fines gold mine” for police traffic officers; any busy main road, after dark, would yield hundreds of those drivers with defective lights as well as those that illegally use the low front fog-lights at all times, so much that one is often burnt out.

Don’t bank on Goldman

From: Dr David Hill, Chief Executive, World Innovation Foundation, Huddersfield.

I WAS amazed to read a recent report by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, one of the major reasons why the global financial collapse happened in 2008, which claims the UK will become the biggest economy in Europe by 2050.

Is this another fairytale that we are being sold by this bank which was on its knees in 2008 by creating another false sense of reality and thereafter needed billions to save it from extinction it has to be asked?

Why would anyone trust such a projection when they did not even see (or did not want to see), the global collapse just a half a decade after America’s Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had told the world clearly in 2003 that the financial world was travelling towards global collapse?