YEP Letters: May 26

Why can’t we have a direct bus? Steven Squires, Bramley As we are no longer getting the trolleybus, First are planning to get a new fleet of buses. The public purse still has money. I’m disabled and 52. Me and a lot of my family live in Bramley. Please can you tell me why we can not get a bus direct to Horsforth to visit our elderly mother? You can get a bus to most locations from Bramley centre. All we need is even just a small bus and it does not have to be a regular service – one an hour or half hour. I know it would be popular. Don’t bet your shirt on this sponsor Philip Crowther, Bingley a recent article in the YEP advised the new LUFC shirt sponsor would be on line betting organisation 32 Red. Opinions on this were reported from the public and all referred to to the fact the colour red should not be allowed to be on the shirt due to the fact it is the same as Manchester United. Surely a more important comment would be that an association with such a body is an example of having no principles as to where LUFC gets its income. Gambling has now been given the impression of being acceptable with its jokey persona in television advertising whereas it should be known for what it is. Like alcohol, gambling can be the source of huge misery for those that partake and do not know their limits together with families and associates who suffer the after effects. Our governments just want to take the tax and to hell with the consequencies. I hope LUFC do not suffer the same fate as Newcastle United who not long ago associated themselves with Wonga and have recently plunged out of the Premier League. I can ascertain facts myself! Mrs M Fletcher, Horsforth When I received my postal poll card for the EU referendum I was surprised to find another leaflet at the same time. This was, in fact, for and on behalf of Britain Stronger in Europe, promoted by Will Straw. Naturally it was all doom and gloom! Has this cost the taxpayer anything or not? I am able to ascertain facts for myself, as are many others. Our transport beggars belief Carol A Gannon, Barwick in Elmet What an embarrassment Leeds is becoming. All this talk of transport schemes over the years and all we have is a white elephant cycle route to benefit a tiny minority, while the majority are left with no improvements at all. The simple answer would have been three or four large park and rides on the outskirts of the city with plentiful buses and cheap fares. If York can do it, why can’t Leeds - then further schemes could have been considered if and when funding became available. Those with one or two buses an hour are not going to be prised from currently using their cars because of the ongoing problems of reliability. Only this morning at a local stop a gentleman was telling me how regularly his hourly service didn’t appear and a recent wait for his bus was almost one and a half hours. Is this what we have to endure in a so-called modern city? It does beggar belief at times Why the wait for new buses? Maxine Watt, Beeston I have been away from Leeds for some time due to work, and am delighted to be back in the city but I’m less than pleased to see the debate on transport hasn’t moved on at all. Unbelievably the Yorkshire Evening Post is once again reporting that after the demise of a planned transport scheme – this time the unloved trolleybus - First is riding to the rescue with proposals for a fleet of new buses that will solve Leeds’ transport problems. Anyone remember when First unveiled the ftr? Just after the gullible and disingenuous Alistair Darling had been persuaded that Leeds didn’t need Supertram and buses could do as good a job. First told us then that ftr would solve Leeds’ transport problems. They called it the vehicle of tomorrow, the three letters of its name being text-speak for future. But the ftr was unpopular, uncomfortable and unreliable and rather than the bus of Leeds and other cities’ futures has become an unloved and embarrassing thing of the past. If their new state-of-the-art double deckers can, as First claim, deliver a step-change, improve journey reliability and attract more people onto public transport, I can’t understand why they haven’t introduced them already. Thanks to LGI’s ‘walking angel’ Phillipa Adam, by email I have just been in to Leeds General Infirmary to have a cardio version done on ward L14. I suffer with bad panic attacks and anxiety. Wow, how supportive, helpful and kind the staff were, especially Nurse Rosie. She is a walking angel but everyone on ward L14, you deserve a medal and no, you don’t get paid enough for what you do. Many thanks to you all. Views strangely inconsistent DS Boyes, LS13 Women’s Lives Leeds is a great idea, bringing several other organisations dedicated to the protection of women under one umbrella, as it were, but that all these are needed is a sad indictment of society today. Leeds City Council leader Coun Judith Blake lending her support is laudable but strangely inconsistent with the recent stance adopted by Leeds City Council in declaring its approve of an ‘official’ red light zone in Holbeck with policing reduced there by request, allowing those questionable activities to flouish - prostitution being the being the worst exploitation or degradation of women imaginable! We can only hope that Women’s Lives Leeds gets all the funding it needs from the Lottery, or anywhere else, to continue its good work. Taking a chance and voting ‘out’ Mr C W Allman, Farsley We are now hearing from Cameron and Osborne why we should stop in the EU. This is from a Prime Minister who said if he did not get what he wanted we would come out of the EU and now he is throwing scare stories at us. What will happen? A war? The NHS being ruined, which he has already done without the help of the EU. More unemployment, when there is hardly any skilled work now. Cameron is frightened of his own job and so is Osborne. If people don’t realise what kind of Prime Minister we have, he’s a person who doesn’t know what telling the truth is. I will take my chances because I think it will give my grandsons a better life and get Britain back to being normal and not being told what we can and can’t do. I’ll vote out and at the next election I’ll vote for the Tories to be out because we will have had 10 years of a party worse than the Monster Raving Loonies. Panicking and patronising Ernest Lundy, by email I wonder how many believe that the pro EU advocates seem to be protesting too vehemently about the gloom and doom that will overcome us should we decide to leave that august body. There seems to be a sense of panic amongst those who are in favour of staying in. At the same time I feel they are patronising the proletariat and also being more than a touch condescending in trying to persuade us to see things their way. Meanwhile those in favour of leaving this all powerful entity seem at least to be putting their case with some measure of dignity and common sense in suggesting we should see things their way; if we have not already decided for ourselves.