Let’s try to get something right and stop wasting time on ill conceived ideas
WE ARE residents of Church Fenton living only around 170m away from the proposed new HS2 line from Birmingham to York.
This would sandwich the housing estate in which our home sits between the existing five main lines that run through Church Fenton’s train station and the new monstrosity.
It can only be called this as we understand that it will be a raised viaduct 30 to 40 foot high at track level with 20 foot tall pylons above the track to carry electrical cables.
We live almost exclusively in the back rooms of our home.
The proposed viaduct would bring the high speed track about level with our bedroom windows (which is in the loft).
We already experience significant noise from the trains that use the mainline and shaking of the ground (which is getting worse) and we do not want this to be added to by the constant hum of electrical current, the noise of the high speed train on the track, or indeed the sound of the trains braking as they slow down towards the ‘hub’ near Ulleskelf where the viaduct is to join the mainline.
We also have no doubt that the high speed line will cause more ground vibration.
The ground shakes particularly badly when long passenger or heavy freight trains go by. The land is like jelly around here.
Not only are we against the proposed HS2 Phase 2 line because of the hideous impact it would make on our home effectively de-valuing it to zero, the impact on our village and the beautiful countryside around it, but we are against the entire project.
The cost to the environment is unacceptable. Claims that HS2 will be of economic benefit to the North are deluded.
The anticipated time saving of 30 minutes between London and York is negligible.
We believe the number of people predicted to use the new line is vastly over-estimated.
The cost is ludicrously high and the money could be better used elsewhere in this deteriorating country to improve, for example, high speed broadband coverage, existing railway lines, the road network (the motorways are terribly congested), the health service, the number of police on our streets, the education system, etc etc.
All are creaking under the weight of the burdens put upon them as money is spent not on core services but on administration and bureaucracy.
HS2 claims to open up the possibility of fast travel to other cities to improve job prospects, but they fail to point out that this is a two way line that opens up people coming the other way to reduce prospects in our own home cities.
HS2 claims that it will create thousands of jobs but how many of these will come from foreign labour that takes jobs away from UK residents and filters money out of the country?
What of the environmental cost? How is it ever going to pay back? Did we not learn any lessons from the Channel Tunnel project?
What will be the final financial burden on the taxpayer as there is no doubt that we can guarantee that it will be significantly higher than the planned budget.
If the government is serious about this project and feel that this is a priority over all the other areas of public concern that they govern, then it is a sad indictment of their ability to lead this country.
We are sure the sway of public concern over this misguided project will ensure that at the next general election, should a political party seek to oppose the HS2 proposals, they will see a swell of voting in their favour, and we hope that it brings down the present administration.
We were once a great country and even name ourselves “Great” Britain. We are now, at best, only “Below Average” Britain and sinking further away as we see our industries die, our businesses being bought out by foreign interests and our jobs taken by immigrants and workers “commuting” from abroad. Our leadership is weak and our main manufactured product is red tape and bureaucracy.
Let’s try to get something right for once and stop wasting time and money on ill conceived ideas.
Please help our community demonstrate our opposition in this matter.
Many thanks.
Andrew and Julie Lawson
via email
I RECENTLY attended a meeting of the North Yorkshire Scrutiny of Health Committee held in Harrogate.
Appearing before the committee were representatives from the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, including the Vale of York which covers Selby and York and who take over from the Primary Care Trust on April 1 this year.
We were informed that they now expected the deficit they were to inherit was £12 million. But there is still no clarity as to the total historic debt that the NHS in North Yorkshire is carrying.
They informed us that the NHS in North Yorkshire were required by the Department of Health to make ‘efficiency savings’ of £65 million and for the Clinical Commissioning Groups that would mean making savings of four per cent each year for the next for three years.
And, that whilst they would be publishing their strategic plans in the next few weeks there would be no details, nothing specific when it comes to what services they would be providing in the future.
They explained that although they held the NHS budget they were the ‘commissioners of services’ and that decisions about what services were to be provided, and where, would require consultation with the ‘providers’ such as the York Hospital NHS Trust who run the Selby War Memorial Community Hospital.
So, we still do not know what the future is for the services provided at the Selby War Memorial Community Hospital. But, what we do know is that there will be less NHS money to spend in North Yorkshire and that will inevitably mean cuts in services.
And, we know from their recent report, ‘North Yorkshire York Clinical Services Review’ that they will be looking at the ‘number of Minor Injuries Units’ in the county and that means that the one in Selby is still in their sights.
One of the other things that the NHS in North Yorkshire is keen to do is to get patients out of hospitals and looked after at home, community care. Their Clinical Services Review report said they wanted to move services for the frail and elderly into the community.
But, proposed cuts to to North Yorkshire County Council’s social services budget will make this harder.
The County are looking to cut a further £6.7 million from this budget, and, two areas they are going to cut are precisely the services needed to help get elderly and frail residents out of hospital and receiving care in their own homes.
£1.8 million from the Supporting People housing program and £2 million from Domiciliary Care, (looking after people in their own homes).
So as well as cuts there is a lack of joined up thinking and working between the NHS and the County Council that will see declining services for some of most vulnerable people in our communities.
John McCartney
NY county councillor
ALL I can say is Bravo Linda! One of the many positive initiatives this labour MEP has taken during her tenure.
Quite in contrast to the UKIP reps who opposed food labelling when proposed, calling it “nanny stating” and whose only input seems to be to insult Jewish Socialist German MEPs by shouting “Sieg Heil” at them.
Watch the episode on U Tube!
The horsebeef scandal is a consequence of the diabolical austerity imposed by this “government” on our society, based on the hoax of an overspending Labour government.
Other consequences are already more severe floods (cuts in Environment Agency grants by 40 per cent) privatisation of the NHS, the newly imposed bedroom tax, driving the already impoverished into an even deeper hole, roads strewn with pot holes, the aged dying of cold, to name but a few things immediately springing to mind.
And for what? To “reduce the state” ensuring that education, social services, public transport, housing, health, become commercial commodities only available to those who can afford them.
My father returning from the war in 1945 was promised a “land fit for heroes”.
Just look what these people are doing to it.
Mr Rodney Price FRCS(G)
Honorary Senior Lecturer Univer sity of Leeds
Selby district councillor
Carlton
WHY is Selby Council intent on driving shoppers out of Selby?
I would like to know who is responsible for the new car park charge on Portholme Road?
For many years I have parked there and have not objected to the fee of £1.20 for three hours parking, which was a very fair price to pay.
However on Friday February 15 I was flabbergasted to find that my £1.20 fee had jumped to £5.40.
I have always done my weekly shop in Morrisons and walked my trolley back to that car park.
I also shop at many other shops in the town centre, meet my friends for coffee or lunch. Consequently I cannot do my shopping etc in two hours.
Changing car parks in not an option as most people know it is quicker to walk in the town than go from car park to car park.
Do Selby council want shoppers to come to Selby or go elsewhere? Where I live Goole and Castleford are easy to get to and cheaper, eg Castleford £1.70 for four hours.
If the charge were cheaper people would stay longer in the town and spend their money. I usually come to town for the Monday market and stay over two hours, also on a Wednesday and Friday for my weekly shop.
Add that up and it would be £16.20 for the privilege of shopping in the town, I’m afraid it’s a big no no.
Pauline Stones
Temple Hirst
WATCH the usual knee jerk reactions by politicians to the recent horse meat debacle.
They will punish everybody to get at the wrong doers and absolve themselves from responsibility.
The hounding of Peter Boddy in Todmorden is just the beginning.
Caring horse owners will soon find it impossible to relieve the pain in their old bones by using Bute.
This will either produce a black market or leave horses suffering.
Who on earth could believe that 27 countries could have the same attitude to animal welfare and food hygiene?
Step one - bring food labelling back to Britain, Brussels as in most things does not have a clue.
Godfrey Bloom
UKIP MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire
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Saturday 25 May 2013
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