Letters to the Editor

The visits are part of the RE curriculum, exploring places of worship. The behaviour of all the pupils was exemplary, and as an ex-teacher I was very impressed with how they conducted themselves, they were polite, respectful and asked informed questions throughout the visits. I am writing to thank the young people and staff. It is often easy to find things to be critical about in our schools, but having worked for several churches and in many schools, the standards set at these recent visits is much higher than I have encountered before. Well done GHS.

Steve Grasham

Church and Community Youth Worker

St. Mark's Church, Utley.

SIR - I am responding to your article last week regarding redundancy fears as Jobcentre Plus streamlines its services.

As a public service the Department for Work and Pensions is committed to ensuring that our processes and procedures are as cost effective as possible whilst fully supporting the Government's Welfare to Work Policy. The introduction of Jobcentre Plus will create significant improvements for all our customers, with a better environment, better access and a single point of contact dealing with all their work-related and benefit needs. The services we currently offer will be enhanced, introducing further services such as Specialist Personal Advisers for disabled customers. I reiterate Simon Wilkinson's comment that benefit claims from our customers will not take longer to process, our targets for dealing with claims for Income Support, Jobseeker's Allowance and Incapacity Benefit will not alter, and we will continue to meet them.

There will be an impact for staff who currently work in Keighley. It is envisaged that the workforce will reduce to around 78 staff from the 122 presently employed there. All staff will be given information on the posts available both in Keighley and Bradford to enable them to provide preferences about where they wish to work and the job roles they would like to undertake.

There is no question that staff will be made redundant, and at no point has this been discussed with managers or staff. Where necessary there will be opportunities for redeployment to other Jobcentre Plus offices within the Bradford district. We will be working with our staff and Trade Union representatives to ensure that they are consulted throughout.

The decision and notification to staff to streamline services in Keighley came before the announcement made in the Budget regarding the loss of 40,000 posts in the Civil Service.

LINDA BARNES

Delivery Manager

Department for Work and

Pensions, Keighley

SIR - It's blindingly clear from your front page report that a right turn ban into Cavendish Street is a non starter, but just to be on the safe side let's just look at an obvious outcome of this change.

Right turns would have to be banned successively all the way down Skipton Road in an ugly progressive failure pattern as it is discovered that children are being mown down in Alice Street, Strawberry Street and so on as increasingly frantic drivers attempt to turn.

This would stop only at Hard Ings. At this point traffic trying to enter the town centre would have to pass a large trading estate.

Perhaps the hope is in somebody's mind that trade would improve in this quarter. There are some pretty big commercial guns down there, but they would be the only ones to gain from such a short sighted plan.

As for pedestrianisation, it's hard to see how cutting out a major route will ease traffic flows. If that were the case we should erect a barrier round the entire town. That would do it.

Does the research indicate how many vehicles at any one time are circling aimlessly looking for a parking space?

Your report on the Traffic Model result is revealing. I'm no statistician, but I'd guess that with a speed limit of 30 mph there can be very few motorists travelling at less than 14 mph to provide an average of 23 mph.

Unless some serious liberties are being taken with the limits, that is. Assuming a town centre diameter of half a mile, the maximum transit time is going to be two minutes.

This is a problem?

George Speller

Hill Top Road

Keighley

SIR - Keighley & District Travel are to be complimented on the initiatives being taken to improve their services to people living within 'THE ZONE'.

I am sure these new services will also assist in tackling the current traffic situation in and around the town centre.

But, why oh why change something that works? The current schedules for the routes 663/664/720 run at times that suit the majority of people using these routes. The 09.43 663 service suits different groups, as the service arrives in Keighley shortly after 10.00 those people attending adult education classes in Keighley College and at other sites can benefit by using their conncession permits.

Other concession card holders are able to be in town at a reasonable time to do their shopping etc and still be home in time to prepare lunch.

These points are also valid for full fare paying passengers. The new timetable will mean that to be in Keighley near to 10am people will not be able to use their concession permits, but will have to pay £1.40 on the new timed 663 of 09.23.

Of course, they could wait for the new timed 720 at 09.58 but this will not have them into the town centre until 10.32 . Anyone can see that this is the very opposite of an 'improvement in services' and has only been made to 'fit in' with the new Zoned services.

People living in Oxenhope and points along that route are very upset and annoyed by these proposed changes.

It just feels as if someone has been playing the numbers game, without any serious thought for the needs of service users. Who, if anyone, was consulted prior to these changes being scheduled?

I wonder why the currrent working timetable had to be changed. Would it not have been preferable to slot the new 'Zone' services around the existing timetable?

Ann Maguire

Lowertown

Oxenhope

SIR - Further to the letter from Ken Brotherhood about Marine David Whittam.

In 1954 David and I were fifteen year old copyholders in the reading room at the Telegraph & Argus.

David's nickname there was Lergy - I can't remember why. We became friends, hiking and rock-climbing locally. In 1957 he joined the Royal Marines and I went into the RAF.

We met only once more, when we'd both completed our 'square-bashing'. Lergy was very proud to be a qualified Marine, or boot-neck as he termed it.

In 1993, working with the MoD in Cyprus, I was able to visit the military cemetery at Wayne's Keep, where I laid some flowers on his grave, together with a few tears.

David was a grand lad who deserved better than to die so young, but he died a Marine, and he'd have wanted no better epitaph.

BOB SWINDELLS

Spring Row,

Denholme Road, Oxenhope

SIR - Once again as I pass the local Primary School on my way home I see that inconsiderate parents have parked their cars in a disgraceful way.

The top of Guardhouse Road becomes a one line area only. I refer to the drivers/parents who pick their children up from Our Lady of Victories School.

On a daily basis people sit in their vehicles side by side, chatting away, oblivious that people are struggling to pass this already tight throughway.

Yellow zig-zag lines and a billboard also fail to register the dangers at this school entrance as people still park right outside the main gates.

And, in my mind, the most dangerous scenario of all is the senseless drivers who park their vehicles right on the corner of the top of Guardhouse Road, joining the already dubious West Lane. Other drivers who wish to cross this junction have to do so with a major amount of risk, as seeing upcoming traffic from West Lane is virtually impossible.

I, like many other respectable concerned parents, have asked the police many times to take action against these despicable drivers, but when they turn up in their yellow luminous jackets, everyone decides to play the law abiding, caring parent. Once they are gone then it's back to normal. This can go on forever without anything being resolved.

One solution I see to take care of this matter is a Parent Watch. Parents who are concerned with this issue should, when going to and from the school, take pen and paper with them and write down the car make, colour and registration number of anyone they see parking in a manner they feel could be a danger to the children at the school.

The final step is to ring the police with this information and also give a copy to the school headmistress. They can then take the appropriate action before a child is maimed or seriously injured.

All this because some parents can't be bothered to park a few extra yards away from this junction. Shame on you.

STUART MEDD

North Dean Road,

Guardhouse, Keighley

SIR - I have read several letters and articles over the past few weeks about the plight of 'disabled driver'.

I understand that disabled drivers need to park in designated parking spots and would never dream of parking in one myself, unlike the few that think nothing of parking in parent parking bays at the local supermarkets when their bays are full.

Parents need that little extra space to get their children in and out of the car so as not to damage other vehicles.

Many disabled drivers also think that a Blue Badge entitles them to park anywhere with total disregard to pedestrians. A prime example of this is on Lawkholme Lane across a lowered section of pavement on double yellow lines.

May I suggest that parking in the much improved Airedale Multi Story car park would be a good option as there are always plenty of empty disabled parking bays whilst we parents have to struggle in and out of our cars without hitting other vehicles, that is if we can even open our doors wide enough to do so.

I feel that if any driver parks irresponsibly and against parking restrictions they should be ticketed, no matter who they are or whether or not they hold a blue badge. It may seem unfair but these restrictions are there for a reason.

D Cox

Valley View Close

Oakworth.

SIR - Sadly, Trevor Lindley decides to attack me, with an arrogance that, I believe, identifies him as a party political politician.

His words, astonishing and bizarre, are noteworthy, in my view, for their condescension. He states he has fought elections from end to end of the country and unfortunately finds that 'there is always a David Samuels to contend with.'

I have news for Mr Lindley; in this country, even the ever-decreasing democracy we still have gives me the right to stand up and to fight the epidemic corrosion that is stifling economic and principled governance of this country, mostly caused by the actions of 'Party Politicians'.

He admits that in 2003 some polling stations in the Worth Valley registered a 20 per cent turnout for the three major political parties. (That was the year I didn't stand in the Worth Valley as an Independent candidate).

Would that 20 per cent poll indicate the public's dislike and distrust of the local political system we have? His negative communiqu regarding the desirable aspirations of many Keighley people, I found objectionable.

At the next local election if people refuse to vote for the Keighley-based Bradford District political parties would that then indicate voters realise that in all economic endeavours Bradford is always first at the financial table and Keighley is thrown the crumbs?

Mr Lindley, people still have the right to think as individuals. They are not Orwellian caricatures to be manipulated that many politicians might wish for.

David Samuels

Station Road

Oxenhope

SIR - Cllr Hawkesworth displays her true colours from the very start of her letter. By referring to 'electors', Mrs Hawkesworth confirms my suspicion that the Conservative Party will sink to any level in an attempt to carry political and electoral advantage amidst personal misery.

I would prefer to see those people who have lost out at the hands of Equitable Life as people, with real lives and families, as opposed to 'electors'.

But in her haste to secure a perceived political advantage, Cllr Hawkesworth failed to pass even a cursory glance on the facts.

She fails to point out that Lord Penrose pointed out that senior regulatory officers urged him 'to take into account the political climate that prevailed for most of the 1990s when the Government's objective was to deregulate, to reduce regulatory burdens on business, to avoid interference in private companies, and to let market forces prevail'.

It was the Labour Government which, in 1997, introduced an effective regulatory system including the creation of a Financial Services Compensation Scheme and a single financial ombudsman service.

Had Cllr Hawkesworth bothered to read the Penrose Report she would have seen that he concluded that 'the Society was the author of its own misfortunes'. Is she advocating that the Government steps in and compensates all those people who have lost at the hands of maladministration on the part of a private firm? Which budget would she prefer to cut so as to compensate the Equitable Life investors? Health? Education? Police? Or is the Conservative Party now advocating tax increases?

Cllr Hawkesworth's comments represent no more than a shameful attempt to exploit personal misery for political advantage.

I had hoped that the Tories had learned the lesson that, to be a credible opposition, they needed to ditch the band-wagon (however flawed) and adopt some principles.

Ann Cryer

Devonshire Street,

Keighley

SIR - I would like to thank the council for cleaning our little bit of England's green and pleasant land on Tuesday, March 11.

It is very nice to look out of our windows and see a tidy bit of grass.

Please keep the good work up. Much appreciated.

M WRIGHT

Emily Street,

Lawkholme Lane