YP Letters: All stick but no carrot to encourage less car use in Leeds

I HAVE just completed the city council consultation on how charging polluting vehicles entering the central area could improve the overall air quality in Leeds.

This is very much the ‘stick’ approach with polluting vehicles rightly charged quite high fees – in effect, taxes.

However there is little mention of any ‘carrot’. Only a metro system with a fully electrified local rail network, complemented by a tram system in areas without rail, will bring the needed improvements in air quality. I, for one, as an asthmatic, would welcome this.

Our public transport is essentially the same as in the 1960s when as a small boy I was fascinated by the dark green buses of LCT.

Little did I know that only a dozen or so years before our short-sighted city council had got rid of a tram network which could have developed into an urban light rail system. Of course Leeds wasn’t the only city to be overtaken by this nonsense but many places in both Britain and France have since developed urban metro systems which contribute to a high quality civic environment.

Yet Leeds had its own ambitious and better plans involving putting single deck trams underground which would have been the basis of a modern urban metro. Your readers have frequently seen the illustration of the proposed art-deco style underground station at Leeds City Square. Such a shame that this wasn’t developed – same old story in Leeds; lack of ambition and unwillingness to invest.

Nevertheless the clean air proposals are a step in the right direction. I understand that bus services in Leeds will shortly allow contactless card payments so that should speed up the service. However why not do as London does and make all buses cashless? Why not, for that matter, emulate our nation’s capital by planning for our own Crossrail tunnel, as I have frequently advocated? Leeds councillors take note, fortune favours the brave.

From: Stewart Arnold, Leader, Yorkshire Party, Meltham, Holmfirth.

ARTHUR Quarmby (The Yorkshire Post, January 6) has no need to be concerned; the Yorkshire Party is not advocating independence for our county rather we want to see a massive devolution of powers out of London to Yorkshire all still within the UK.

To get the best outcome for the people of Yorkshire all governance models should be considered.