YP Letters: Funding for affordable rural homes

THE Yorkshire Post is right, “the need for affordable homes in rural communities has never been more pressing” and that a balance is needed when it comes to building on our green and pleasant land (The Yorkshire Post, August 6).

As the latest report from the Campaign to Protect Rural England points out: only 990 of the 7,600 homes which rural communities need were built last year. Giving more power to Community Land Trusts (CLTs) could help meet that challenge.

CLTs are giving communities the chance to build genuinely affordable housing that meets local need, and they are thriving in Yorkshire. There’s Calder Valley CLT, Leeds Community Homes and Upper Dales CLT to name just a few.

With over 840 CLT homes across the country, the Government’s £163m Community Housing Fund will see this number grow. Anybody can start a CLT and we run a start-up fund to help them. So maybe readers that share your concern could be the solution you’re looking for?

Roads are a dead end

From: Chris Broome, Sheffield Climate Alliance, Hackthorn Road, Sheffield.

RE the call by a cross-party group of politicians for the Chancellor to commit £100bn to investment in northern transport (The Yorkshire Post, August 2).

They are right to highlight the disparity between transport spending in the North and in London and that upgrading our railways is well overdue. But committing vast sums to major road projects is not the right way forward for a 21st century transport system.

Any realistic plan to address climate change will involve a major shift from road journeys to more sustainable means of travel. For longer journeys, this mainly requires improving our railways. But we should also make serious efforts to ensure work and facilities are provided closer to where people live.

So it is encouraging to read of Dan Jarvis’ enthusiasm for promoting active travel (The Yorkshire Post, August 2). As he points out, walking and cycling have a range of health benefits and – provided they reduce the volume of cars in our towns and cities – can play a vital role in improving air quality.

Tethered to their phones

From: Bob Swallow, Townhead Avenue, Settle.

ON the smartphone menace, there are two aspects which still give me cause for hope. First the absence of a signal at many of the places which I still enjoy, and second the knowledge that the majority of the public are gregarious.

My small number of walking pals, never more than three, had a term for such folk – ‘touroid’ being a sub-species of tourist governed by invisible umbilical cords and coupled to their phone which restricts their travel to no more than 100 yards from their vehicle. Long may this continue.

Chance to save services

From: Jean Lorriman, Waterloo, Huddersfield.

MATT Hancock, the new Health Secretary, should be courageous.

If he wants to shine in his new important job. keep the old Huddersfield Royal Infirmary and A&E and Halifax hospital as they are, with new incremental improvements to give the patients and the excellent staff the pay and conditions they deserve.

A job abroad for our gulls

From: Michael J Robinson, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.

I DO not know if Algerian trains run slower in summer as a precaution in case the tracks buckle in the heat, but I certainly saw no evidence of track points being treated with reflective white paint.

Neither did I see gulls on my trip to Algiers, where their puny pigeons were utterly unable to deal with the monstrous food litter problem. It occurred to me that if Whitby could net a squadron or two of their nuisance herring gulls, they could ship them abroad. A win-win situation.

Morrisons trails in poll

From: Jennifer Bookbinder, Cottingley Gardens, Leeds.

I SEE that Sainsbury’s has topped a “mystery shopper” survey and Morrisons have come last in the ‘big five’ supermarkets.

I am not surprised, as this survey is all about customer service. I find Sainsbury’s customer service excellent, but Morrisons to be very poor.

It has verified what I always thought about these two particular supermarkets.

Weaving the right words

From: Miss J M Wood, Canada Road, Rawdon

RE Jayne Dowle’s column ‘Technology is no magic fix’ (The Yorkshire Post, August 2), may I respectfully point out the saying is ‘warp and weft’ – the first being the top-to-bottom threads, the second side-to-side, via the shuttle. ‘Weave’ and ‘weft’ are the same, from which no cloth could be made.

Extra stress for bereaved

From: Max Nottingham, St Faith’s Street, Lincoln

MY wife died some months ago. I had an unbelievable number of hoops to jump through just to 
get her Post Office account closed down. Why put people through a lot of stress when they are at their most vulnerable?