Letters to the Editor

SIR, - When Airedale Primary Care Trust finally produce a health plan for the district it is to be hoped they will reach the only sensible decision regarding the Coronation Hospital and keep all services within Ilkley, preferably on the current site.

Substantial amounts of money have been spent on the Coronation Hospital in recent years, including £100,000 on refurbishment and new equipment in the X-Ray department last year. The new X-Ray machine was installed on April 2, 2002 - and should have an eight to ten-year lifespan.

On the first floor of the hospital the administration offices are used by a variety of Airedale PCT nursing and other staff, including the Staff Training and Development team. These offices were also refurbished in 2002.

Coronation Hospital provides an extensive range of services and specialist clinics, plus a minor injuries unit. These services are conveniently adjacent to the Health Centre. It does not make sense to remove or relocate them. Indeed, they meet the Government's own criteria of locally accessible services.

The Ilkley community is watching and waiting for Airedale Primary Care Trust's consultation document. In the meantime members of the public could attend the meetings of the Primary Care Trust and Airedale NHS Trust Boards. These are open to the public and could be very enlightening.

Kathy Best

Ilkley Parish Councillor,

(South Ward),

73 Leeds Road,

Ilkley.

Speeding message

SIR, - Open any newspaper, national, regional or local, and it quickly becomes apparent that traffic issues - in particular, the speed of traffic - have become a major concern for law abiding drivers, pedestrians and residents.

The latest Bolling Road survey in Ilkley, conducted during the last week in April and at the beginning of May, although sandwiched between two holiday periods and complicated by vehicles parked at an adjacent building site, revealed yet again that more than 23,000 vehicles exceeded the speed limit in a week. Of those, 7,859 were travelling at more then 35mph.

The speeds at which many drivers are travelling are not just a case of 'accidentally 'creeping over the ;limit', as has been suggested. They are aggressively dangerous speeds of 40 mph, 45 mph, 50 mph, 55 mph and 60 mph.

Horrifyingly some 76 drivers exceeded 60 mph in one seven-day period, more than twice the legal limit and yet we know that even 5 mph over the 30 mph limit can be critical in the event of an accident. Fair minded people will agree that these speeds are unacceptable.

In the event of a breakdown on the motorway, such is the potential danger from passing traffic, even on the inside lane, that drivers are exhorted to park on the hard shoulder, get out of the vehicle and take refuge on the embankment.

Here there is no protection for pedestrians, young or old, from traffic speeding at 60 mph-plus.

Councillors, the highways authority, the police and road safety committee will be concerned at this dangerous law breaking and will be anxious to solve this long-running problem, both here and on Cowpasture Road, before the new intake of younger children at the grammar school in September, and to ensure the safety of all road users, pedestrians and residents.

We wait to hear what action will be taken.

BARBARA DAVY

The Willows,

Parklands,

Ilkley.

Raising a glass

SIR, - I write with regard to your 25 Years Ago item, which began 'Work on skatepark begins on Monday'.

It has taken a quarter of a century, but nice to know that victory is finally ours (I don't count that track thing that used to be up by the college).

I have no idea what happened to Dids (David Clarke) or Roger (Lambert), but I will be raising a glass.

HOWARD SMITH

Oxford House College,

15 King Edward Street,

Oxford OX1 4HT.

Road humps

SIR, - I really must respond to the letter printed in your paper recently from Christine Hill. She describes herself as a councillor although that is presumably on the toothless parish council.

No, I am not ashamed of my home address. I live in Baildon but have been between addresses for the past 11 weeks as I am moving house.

What a pity Mrs Hill did not do her research properly. If she had she would have known that the racing business I am in is to do with horses and not motor vehicles.

Is it not typical of people like Mrs Hill that when they want to try to prove a point they state 'facts', but without any substance?

"Heartily sick of regular crashes', she proclaims. Regular, Mrs Hill? And just how many would that be then?

I never stated that I thought a car was more precious than human life. Of course it isn't. But it's a comment that sounds nicely emotive in her letter.

The truth is that virtually everyone who has written to this paper is against this ridiculous road calming scheme. After thought, I now have another suggestion. Remove the bumps and as the road is obviously so busy, according to Mrs Hill, let us have it widened.

Then there should be pavements constructed on both sides making it safe for pedestrians and I would not be averse to the building of a pelican crossing to protect those crossing the road.

How can this be done? Easy! Just purchase some of the land from the huge gardens that these residents have. After all, this will make it a good road for cars and a safe one for human beings and that will meet the criteria laid down by Mrs Hill.

Surely, not even Mrs Hill would put a little bit of garden before the life of a human being!

Karl Zanft

25 The Grove Promenade,

Ilkley.

Horn aplenty

SIR, - Obviously the highway through Burley Woodhead is considered to be so dangerous by the local residents,that I can only suggest that one sounds one's horn, when driving over each and every speed 'hump'.

David Henderson

11 Ghyllwood,

Ilkley.

New constitution

SIR, - So at last we have woken up and realised that over the last year in Brussels a European Constitution has been drafted. The Convention that was set the task of doing this was no big secret, it has been meeting in public, comprising elected government ministers, national MPs and MEPs and members of civil society.

It has tried to seek the views of European society at large, but until now in Britain it has been impossible to get a debate on the issue at all.

Why was this convention given the task of coming up with a proposal for a constitution? Very simply because the European Union is getting larger, from 15 to 25 members states. To accommodate this, the decision-making structure has to be simplified and clarified.

Government Ministers in their last big meeting in Nice failed to produce the answers.

The draft constitution spells out what decisions should be taken at European level. This will give the kind of transparency about the workings of Europe that have never been available to our citizens before. They can clearly see what Europe is responsible for, rather than searching the impossible legalise of umpteen treaties.

The proposed constitution actually gives more powers to national parliaments than they have enjoyed up until now. They could have rights both to initiate legislation and certainly have the right to intervene if they do not like the look of something coming from Brussels.

The truth is that a kind of 'federal' Europe already exists. Within Europe all countries face many similar problems, so we work together and some 60 per cent of new laws passed in Britain now have had some European involvement.

We are not told what to do by others. British Ministers help shape laws which are equally binding on other EU countries and as MEPs we do the same in the European Parliament.

We work within the EU because the world is now dominated by international organisations that no one country can control. Multinational companies have tentacles everywhere. Financial speculators can destroy national currencies at the touch of a keyboard.

Organised crime pays no more heed to national boundaries than does environmental pollution. This is not the result of some plot by foreigners; it is a simple reality with which European legislators have to deal.

If the current hysteria about the proposed EU constitution makes us debate our relationship with Europe then so much the better. I am one of those who believe that we would have benefited from a debate and a referendum at each Treaty change.

Previous Labour and Conservative Governments have denied us that possibility. If we as Britons are ever to be comfortable with our position as Europeans we have to have this debate and if the Government denies the people a referendum on the final result of the proposed constitution it, like its predecessors, will find that Europe could be its downfall.

Diana Wallis

Liberal Democrat MEP,

Yorkshire and the Humber,

Land of Green Ginger,

Hull..

More bureaucracy

SIR, - We will soon be asked to vote in a referendum on whether we would want a Yorkshire Assembly.

Why on earth do the local Labour MPs think people want another layer of government and bureaucracy? A Yorkshire parliament would be an expensive white elephant full of failed political cronies.

If Labour believe that things should be decided more locally they should hand more powers to the local councils, not make decisions more remote at a regional level.

The greatest irony is that the local Labour MPs who are so keen for an expensive referendum on a Yorkshire parliament that few people want, are the same people who oppose a referendum on the new European constitution, which transfers vast powers out of this country altogether.

So much for having decisions taken at a more local level!

PHILIP DAVIES

Prospective Conservative

Parliamentary candidate,

Shipley Constituency.