YP Letters: Farming machinery vital to show

ALL of us in the Great Yorkshire Show team very much appreciate David Quarrie’s compliments. With regards to his concern over our coverage of farm machinery (The Yorkshire Post, June 20), I’d like to mention how we are striving to give this section the attention it deserves.

We recognise and celebrate the importance to farming of machinery and are proud to showcase the latest innovations as well as displaying some of the finest tractors and state-of-the-art technologies. For example we have eight out of the top 10 tractor manufacturers exhibiting at the show. We are also very grateful to those agri-machinery exhibitors as we recognise the logistical challenge of moving machinery and staffing stands at a busy time of year.

This will be our fourth year of running the White Rose What’s Next innovation awards which covers new products developed for farming.

These awards encourage firms to introduce new technologies and to bring them to the show where they can be seen by thousands of farmers over the three days.

Lely will also be demonstrating their latest in robotic milking and Russell’s (Kirbymoorside) Ltd will be offering farmers the chance to win the use of Europe’s best-selling tractor, a New Holland T5.105, for a year.

Last year we also showcased a fine exhibition to celebrate Ford and Fordson Association’s 100th anniversary thanks to the West Yorkshire Vintage Tractor and Engine Club. This included a 100-year-old Ford Ministry of Munitions tractor.

Two years ago, we had two state-of-the-art combine harvesters on the Presidents’ Lawn with accompanying facts and information for the visitors.

We will hold an exhibition this year looking back at farming machinery spanning the decades as well as showing footage from Yorkshire Film Archive.

We are proud of the agricultural machinery exhibited at the Great Yorkshire and from celebrating the past to embracing the future, we aim to spotlight every aspect of farming.

Unfair to MP over Bill

From: Coun Mike Pollard (Con), Baildon Ward, Bradford Council.

THE undignified personal attack that former Lib Dem councillor and fanatical anti-Brexit campaigner John Cole made on our local MP Philip Davies (The Yorkshire Post, June 20) also suffered from being untrue.

Mr Cole suggested that Philip Davies had spoken in Parliament to block a Bill which was designed to prevent excessive force being used on patients in mental health institutions. This is wrong on both counts.

Firstly the Bill was not about that (it is already illegal to use excessive force), and if Mr Cole had bothered to read the debate, he would have known that Philip supported this Bill and was trying to improve it.

Indeed the Labour MP who introduced the Bill made clear he agreed with what Philip Davies was seeking to do. The Bill will become law very soon. It is a shame that Mr Cole can’t remove his political blinkers and find out the facts. He owes Philip Davies an apology.

Council that exited stage

From: Coun Peter McBride (Lab), Kirklees Council.

I READ with sadness the demise of the West Yorkshire Playhouse (The Yorkshire Post, June 22).

Your report gives us some of the history of an earlier Leeds theatre but neglects to provide the full reason for its existing name.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse exists solely as a result of a significant grant from the West Yorkshire County Council which sought to provide a long-term legacy to the people of the county to commemorate the termination of the county council by the then Thatcher government.

It was, in fact, the largest grant bestowed by the county council, which also left a legacy to create the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield and sufficient money to sustain Opera North which was then in difficulties.

As a member of that council, I remember we voted for these investments as a permanent memorial to one of the largest and most successful metropolitan counties that funded support to all the arts, which its successor body discontinued.

The county planned and provided all strategic highways, owned and ran all bus services as well as the police and fire sevices. Most significantly, it was a democratically-elected accountable body, prematurely abolished.

Today we in West Yorkshire are seeking so-called devolutionary powers from another Tory government that will only assign such powers to any disparate group of local authorities that will accept the imposition of a mayor which, incidentally, all West Yorkshire district authorities have voted against. The retention of the former name might have reminded us of a former bastion of democracy.

Conflicts of interest

From: Gerald Hodgson, Spennithorne, Leyburn.

GREG Wright highlights the need to break up the big audit firms to create more competition (The Yorkshire Post, June 21).

I think there is another issue at least as relevant. All the big four accountants are essentially two businesses – audit and management consultancy.

This must create major conflicts of interest, namely that the audit arms do not want to give the hard word to their audit clients who are also their management consultant clients for fear of losing their business.

The answer is simple. Audit firms must not also be management consultants. The two services must be provided by firms with no links with each other whatsoever.