YEP Letters: March 12

Keep our local libraries open

John Appleyard, Liversedge

I welcome readers letters and comments in your newspaper opposing library closures and hope they are successful in keeping them open.

I’m particularly concerned about the future of Heckmondwike Library which seems to be receiving very little attention. This library is used by school children who have no computer at home and are reliant on the library computers to do their home work. Unemployed people use the library for the job club which helps them to find work.

It’s hard to believe but there is actually a Government Minister for Libraries called Michael Ellis, he doesn’t seem to have done anything about opposing library closures or the cuts in its budget.

Pothole problems around Leeds: your views

Potholes are the bane of motorists’ lives. 
They cause severe damage to tyres wheels and steering and are a major contributor to axle and suspension failure – a problem which accounts for one third of mechanical issues on UK roads and costs car owners an estimated £2.8 billion every year. 
With the brutal weather we’ve been experiencing these crater-like cracks have become increasingly prevalent across much of the UK’s roads – and they’re not only a problem in winter. 
We asked YEP readers for their views and here’s what some of them said on social media..

Lindsey Bell

Maybe if people stopped claiming for every ridiculous slip trip and pothole damage they could afford to fix the roads!

It costs the council about £3million a year to respond to legal claims and they defend about 75% of them.

Peter Mellars

Every trip is dodge the crater day!

Gary Wainwright

Soon as the pothole problem becomes the new PPI claims line the better. I have never seen our roads in such poor condition.

Stu Dobson

Just about every road in the country.

Sarah Mckie

People pay road tax yet nothing gets done to the roads.

Nicky Brookes

Middleton Town street is full of then from start til end.

Stephen Swales

We used to drive on the left of the road.

Now we drive on what’s left of the road.

Richard Whitfield

The potholes of Horsforth, Nidderdale and Manchester helped my car fail the MOT yesterday and beyond being economically worth putting right.

Drive shafts, coils, springs and broken wheels in the last couple of years finally put paid to our Volvo.

Built like tanks but not enough to cope with the state our roads have been allowed to deteriorate into.

Jayney Baybe

My car passed its MOT then driving home from Leeds one evening a pothole strikes.

Took the wheel out of my hands huge bang at the passenger side, I get out to have a look, only broken the spring.

Two days without a car, hundred quid lighter in my purse. So much for passing its MOT with flying colours! Will I get a rebate on my council tax?

Government riding roughshod

J Patrick, Pontefract

THE British government is not pursuing a policy of fracking in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but only in England, particularly in Yorkshire.

The British Prime Minister insists that fracking will benefit the UK. What the British Prime Minister means is that fracking will benefit Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because it is only taking place in England, and Yorkshire in particular.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will not suffer any fear of their communities being exposed to any adverse health problems associated with fracking.

Nor will they suffer from falling house and land values and affordability of insurance, and the detriment of thousands of lorries tearing through their communities and countryside. These issues will only happen in England, and Yorkshire in particular.

Unfortunately, it is English taxpayers who finance the running of the British Isles, but who are the last in the queue when it comes to receiving health and social care benefits, services and democracy, and whose infrastructure is the worst in Britain.