Wheelchair unfriendly bus company

I HAVE just a most unsatisfactory telephone conversation with a supervisor person at Stagecoach.

This year is our 50th wedding anniversary and to commemorate this, we are having a couple of treats,

One is a trip to see Miranda Hart at the Leeds Arena and the other is to go on a yacht on the Norfolk Broads.

I rang Stagecoach to check that their Express bus from Goole to Leeds was wheelchair-friendly, as my husband uses a wheelchair and cannot walk. I was told that their current buses on this route from Goole to Leeds were usually double deckers.

However these are due to be changed to older coaches (she stressed not new), which could not take wheelchairs or presumably push chairs either. I was also told that it is not a requirement to have wheelchair access on any coaches or buses.

As far as I was aware, it was a requirement that on a bus route, to have one accessible low floor bus provided. Evidently this is not the case with Stagecoach.

It is bad enough that my husband cannot walk, but being refused travel makes both him and I think he is a second class citizen and this is in our celebratory year.

We have however travelled around the world many times without any problems from Australia to Djerba, where people couldn’t have been more helpful.

Even the trip planned and booked to the Norfolk Broads to go on a sailing ship wasn’t a problem, in fact they couldn’t have helped more.

So why is it in our local area one of the largest bus companies in the country cannot help us travel?

Advice for pedestrians

From: Tim Radcliffe, Binns Lane, Holmfirth.

I THINK some advice should also be given to the pedestrians who feel that they command the roads at pedestrian crossings (Danny Dorling, Yorkshire Post, January 25).

I was educated to arrive at the kerb, look right, left and right again, and when the traffic stopped I was safe to proceed.

Today, it appears to me, that pedestrians don’t even break pace and simply step out into the road and expect the passing cars to stop.

End of the Union Flag?

From: Leonard J Sandford, Highgate Avenue, Lepton, Huddersfield.

THERE is either pride or hate when it comes to the Union Jack – as we knew it in my young days – or the politically correct Union Flag of today.

I notice of late that the continual vindictiveness in Ulster relating to flag-flying seems to be still in the forefront of the Irish question.

All may be resolved concerning the British flag come September when at last “never-endom” comes to an end and Scotland becomes independent and England and the English get their Parliament back which was lost to our ancestors in 1707.

No more will we see our Union Flag fly, it will go from the Royal and Merchant Navies, the flags of Australia, New Zealand and dependent territories, from the United Nations in New York, and the EU in Brussels.

Never will this magnificent flag bedeck the Mall again or fly from village hall to palaces, garden fete or carnival.

And it will be one less squabble in Ireland.

Roll on the 
next election

From: TW Coxon, West Auckland Road, Darlington.

WE live in times that to mention or have any concerns about immigration or overseas aid 
is to be accused of racism, 
when in actual fact it is no such thing.

We are told today that we give more foreign aid than any other European country, have given £1m to help Syrian refugees with more promised next year to match it.

We have given refuge to 1,000 Syrian asylum seekers and now, we are told, Mr Cameron is likely to invite more refugees from Syria.

Despite the opinion polls showing alarm about our immigration policy and the 
effect on employment and 
the economy in general, we 
continue to have these harebrained decisions by our politicians.

When will somebody put at stop to this incessant inflow of people from abroad?

Haven’t any of our politicians any common sense? Can’t they see the consequences of this ridiculous “open door policy”.

Roll on the next election.

Mr Cameron, you are committing political suicide!

OK for some

From: John Toothill, Spring Avenue, Keighley.

ON watching the BBC television programme Eggheads (January 20) on television, one contestant gave his age as 51 and said he was a retired tax inspector.

He looked fit and healthy and capable of work. I wonder how big the handshake and how much the pension?

It is ok for some.

Hands of time

From: Dr Wendy Brown, Park Lane Mews, Roundhay Park Lane, Leeds.

I HOPE the suggestion that funds be raised towards the creation 
of a “countdown clock” to herald Le Grand Départ of the Tour 
de France will remind readers that in Leeds we have Oakwood Clock in urgent need of expensive repair. Surely, with its historic connection to Marks & Spencer’s first stall in Leeds Market, the clock at Oakwood is of greater long-term significance to Yorkshire?

New words

From: Mrs Annie Painter, Spring Lane, Crofton.

I THOUGHT the letters last week relating to the wrong usage of grammar in English language might be interested to know that the latest word invented by teenagers is ‘Appaz,’ (adv) meaning “apparently”, and the latest phrase is ‘yolo,’ meaning “you only live once” (usually used when relating to alcohol consumption).

Nice cup of tea I think and a lie down. LOL.