YP Letters: Stress of HS2 route threat to our home

From: Helen Bladen, Ludwell Hill, Barnburgh, Doncaster.
Should the HS2 route be altered in South Yorkshire?Should the HS2 route be altered in South Yorkshire?
Should the HS2 route be altered in South Yorkshire?

THE first priority of Sheffield mayor Dan Jarvis should be to get the HS2 route changed back to Meadowhall. The M18 route will decimate the Dearne Valley.

Your paper has reported many times on HS2. most reports have been damming, suggesting it is a complete shambles and unfit for purpose. We totally agree with this. Our home is on the M18 route and we have been informed it will be a compulsory purchase.

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We had only purchased the property one week prior to receiving the letter with regards to this route (only sleeping in the property one night).

This news was devastating and has caused a great deal of stress. The property was in need of almost total renovation which we have carried out in order to live in it, with huge costs.

We are rather anxious, like the homeowners on the Shimmer estate in Mexborough, with regards to valuation of our property. We have contacted our MP, who is sympathetic and wrote to the Prime Minister. The letter was passed onto HS2. None of our questions were answered – just a generic response. We would like to think that Mr Jarvis could find time to look into the M18 route now he has been elected as mayor.

Policy leads to fly-tipping

From: John Warren, Aldfield, Ripon.

INCIDENCES of fly-tipping are on the increase (The Yorkshire Post, May 12). This is hardly surprising. In 2014, North Yorkshire County Council made the idiotic decision to introduce swingeing charges to householders for the disposal of rubble, soil and plasterboard.

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As a result, recycling levels for these materials dropped massively and the obvious conclusion to draw was that these materials were being fly-tipped. A similar thing happened when charges for tyre disposal were introduced last year.

Until recently, NYCC officers have been in denial about the catastrophic consequences. Our local authorities should be encouraging us all to recycle, but the introduction of deterrents such as charging for the disposal of small amounts of DIY construction waste and tyres has completely the opposite effect.

It may also be illegal because the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed that legislation introduced in 2015 bans councils from charging for the disposal of household waste generated by DIY.

Let’s hope that NYCC now has the common sense and humility to reverse its ill-judged policy before taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for even more clean-up operations.

Stay wary over hospital

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From: Daniel Vulliamy, Chair, Driffield & Rural Labour Party.

WARM congratulations to the ‘Hands off HRI’ campaigners and your newspaper for a long hard-fought campaign to save Huddersfield Royal Infirmary (The Yorkshire Post, May 12).

But if we might presume to advise our West Yorkshire friends, do not let your guard drop. Our Clinical Commissioning Group decided to close three highly-valued Minor Injuries Units in rural East Yorkshire in 2016.

The public responded brilliantly with petitions, demonstrations and letters, and Jeremy Hunt urged a partial rethink for when the units closed last month. We were promised a replacement 8am to 8pm service in each of the locations.

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However it is clear that we were deceived. The alleged service is only available, in theory, on a telephone basis where the operators are unaware of the existence of the service and refer callers to already overloaded A&E hospitals in Scarborough and Hull. The NHS has been cut to the bone by Governments since 2010, and its privatisation is still firmly on the Tory agenda. Stay vigilant, Huddersfield.

Cynical act by Grayling

From: Roger Backhouse, Upper Poppleton, York.

EVEN if Chris Grayling denies cancelling any plans to upgrade rail projects in the North of England, his actions suggest another story.

Cancelling Windermere branch electrification and extending electrification north of Kettering (eventually to reach Sheffield) most definitely affects the North. Unless perhaps the Minister defines “the North” as somewhere over the Tyne?

At best the Minister acted cynically. The National Audit Office found that he decided to drop these projects in March 2017, but did not annnounce them until July that year (Tom Richmond, The Yorkshire Post, May 5).

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This was a convenient delay to avoid bad news in the run-up to the General Election.

As for the wonders of the digital railway he promotes so vigorously, dream on.

Digital signalling offers some benefits, but, in usual Department for Transport style, is hyped up by the technical illiterates who run that department.

Clarification

ON the letters page of The Yorkshire Post on April 21, a 
letter from correspondent Steven McNamara made a number of criticisms of Labour MP John Mann.

Mr Mann has asked to us to point out that the assertions made were incorrect. We’re happy to put the record straight.