YP Letters: Time to come out fighting for Huddersfield and towns threatened by change

The residents of Huddersfield out in force to protest against thr proposed closure of the A&E department at the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

FORTY odd years ago when the then government imposed its will on Huddersfield, insisting that the corporation must go and wealthy, prosperous Huddersfield (on the verge of city status) must be merged with the run-down towns of the Heavy Woollen District, many locals predicted that the result would be that Huddersfield would be reduced to the standard of towns such as Batley and Dewsbury, and how right those locals were.

I find it difficult to think of anything worthwhile or constructive which Kirklees (the very name stolen from Sir John Armytage’s Kirklees Estate – which lies outside Kirklees) has done over the past 40 years, compared to the immense damage which has been, is being and will continue to be done to this town (the town that bought itself).

How can we ever be rid of it? The public can change the national government – why is it allowed no say in the form of its own local government?

Four times the government has imposed itself on our communities over the past century, each time into bigger, more costly and less effective forms.

The much-trumpeted Northern Powerhouse is shaping up to be more of the same. Give the people a choice, because we know that smaller councils are inevitably more accessible, more effective and more efficient.

From: Edward Grainger, Botany Way, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

AS the battle lines are drawn over the proposal to close the A&E department at Huddersfield’s Royal Infirmary (The Yorkshire Post, February 29) and over the proposed plan to merge two middle schools in Whitby, I am reminded of the words some years ago, of late Labour leader Hugh Gaitskill.

His words about the future of the party under his leadership – “to fight, fight and fight again” – could usefully apply to both campaigns.

I wish them every success in their endeavours. Isn’t Huddersfield and the immediate surrounding areas deserving of its own A&E unit? Don’t Huddersfield folk get old and infirm and require emergency treatment?

Similarly, if parents and pupils want to retain their own school of excellence, shouldn’t they have their way and their say or has democracy reached alarmingly low levels in the seaside town?

Like the words of the great John Monsell hymn I and the good people of Huddersfield  and Whitby should continue to “fight the good fight with all thy might”.