YP Letters: Airport is not passenger friendly

TO call Leeds Bradford Airport “International” is a bad joke (The Yorkshire Post, July 30).

Last year I travelled to New Zealand through 10 airports of all sizes and not one was as passenger unfriendly as Leeds.

At Leeds for a departure there is nowhere to sit except in an eating area – if you can find a seat. To order anything, it is a scrum and you need a table number but if you are travelling alone and cannot leave your luggage that is impossible.

I used to look forward to going and finding a quiet corner upstairs with a decent coffee. Not now. Not to mention getting to the plane via small staircases and passages, and a lengthy walk for most flights.

Coming back again is as bad. After years of comment, there is still no covered walkway to the car park. Is it asking too much to keep passengers dry when it rains? It is a miserable airport to come in to.

When I raised these issues several years ago, I was told that big improvements and changes were going to take place over the coming few years.

As an observation, does Duty Free really need to occupy so much space? Most items can be bought more cheaply elsewhere. Are “pub-style” drinking areas such a good idea before a flight?

A city of opportunity

From: Coun Peter Gruen (Lab), Leeds City Council.

MAY I welcome the wise comments from Gerald Jennings regarding our economic outlook post referendum?

We are fortunate to have Gerald at the head of the Leeds Chamber, batting for us, instilling confidence and helping to lead the joint civic-commercial partnership.

We stand on the cusp of great opportunities in Leeds: Victoria Gate about to open, it will be transformational just as Trinity was; the South Bank and Aire Valley opened and offered up for unrivalled commercial developments with first class transport links and the emergence of key new national and global investment and developer partners. What a fabulous platform for our city.

We acknowledge that some of our existing inheritance is well past its sell-by date – the miserable station, the lack of coherent transport links and the lack of affordable housing.

But the city is up for these challenges. With energy, vision and continuous proactivity, we can shape our own destiny.

We can host Davis Cup

From: Dr Lucy Brown, Chair, Yorkshire Party.

GIVEN that Andy Murray’s tremendous success in last year’s Davis Cup led to the semi-final being played in Glasgow to huge crowds, isn’t it only right that East Yorkshire’s Kyle Edmund’s efforts in this year’s quarter-final should be rewarded accordingly?

There are numerous indoor locations across Yorkshire that could host the tie against Argentina and it would bring Edmund richly-deserved home support as part of our British team.

Blame Green for BHS fiasco

From: Mrs W Abbott, Boulsworth Avenue, Hull.

BARONESS Altmann goes to great lengths trying to explain the reasons for the demise of BHS (The Yorkshire Post, July 27).

The pension debt, she says, “appears not to have been taken as seriously as it should”.

Are we to assume from this statement that the Pension Regulators have not been doing their job properly?

Sir Philip Green must accept full responsibility for the collapse of BHS and agree substantial compensation to the workforce for their loss.

Baroness Altmann concludes that the “regulatory system has worked so far”. Surely this financial fiasco would never have escalated if the system worked efficiently.

Grammar schooling

From: Elisabeth Baker, Leeds.

I AM sorry to disappoint Rosamund M Gray (The Yorkshire Post, July 26) but what is said on ITV is grammatically accurate.

The newsreader says “Join Mary Nightingale and me at 6.30”. If he and Mary Nightingale had been the subjects of the sentence, rather than its objects, by saying for example “Mary Nightingale and I hope that you will join us at 6.30”, then “I” instead of “me” would have been correct.

But not if they are its objects, as in your correspondent’s example.

The test is always to try out the sentence without the other person’s name. One would not say “Join I at 6.30” or “Me hopes that you will join...” .

A similar annoyance is heard these days on The Archers. The current scriptwriters are responsible for previously well-spoken characters such as David Archer now saying “Me and Ruth are ...” instead of “Ruth and I are...” which they would have said, correctly, in the past.

Grrrrrr!

The teachers’ viewpoint

From: Jo Conway, Harrogate.

THANK you so much Chris Metcalfe for putting forward the teaching profession’s view on this continual change in education (The Yorkshire Post, July 26).

New initiatives and policies follow one after another in quick succession. It can really make one quite dizzy!

I, like Chris, have followed and implemented these ‘initiatives and policies’ over 25 years as a primary teacher.

I was, and still am, passionate about education – achieving the very best outcomes for all children. All staff at my continually ‘Outstanding’ school were given some ‘freedom’ to do something about it.

This ‘freedom’ made the big difference.