Letters - January 28, 2016

Talbot Road bus station view at junction of Cookson Street (left) and Talbot Road Blackpool

With the police and fire services working together, our emergency services will be strengthened, as well as resulting in significant savings and benefits for the public.

PCCs are democratically accountable to the public and have a strong incentive to pursue ambitious reform to improve local services and deliver value for money, so it makes sense for them to take on the responsibility for fire and rescue services where a local case is made. And it simply doesn’t make sense for emergency services to have different premises, back offices and IT systems when their work is so closely related.

These changes will mean more efficient and effective emergency services, resulting in peace of mind for families if they ever need them.

Andrew Pratt

Conservative PCC candidate for Lancashire

POLITICS

Report shows how Labour is in a hole

When a political party is being led towards a black hole, as the Labour Party is, it cries out for a new leader. Unfortunately, they are absent in the Labour Party. Burnham, Cooper and Kendall are simply not up to the mark, as their dire performance showed in the leadership election.

An honest appraisal of why Labour lost the General Election would have helped it’s revival. Instead, Dame Margaret Beckett has produced a report so weak and inadequate as to be risible.

True, the M word runs through the report, but it refers to the naughty media not the ineffectual Miliband. Excuses and limp analysis abound.The real reason, the refusal to trust Labour with the public’s money, is absent. Instead we get a whitewash, in place of a brutal assessment.

The current suggestion by moderates that the comedian Eddie Izzard should stand for election to the National Executive Committee in order to combat Corbyn’s disastrous policies speaks volumes. Even he would find it difficult to come up with a better joke.

Beckett’s inept report illustrates the hole that Labour is in. She has been an MP for 42 years during which time she held various cabinet posts. Yet Dame Margaret has produced a feeble report which not only shirks the obvious but misses the opportunity to present a compelling moderate vision for a once proud party.

Dr Barry Clayton

Cleveleys

TRANSPORT

Surely we need a proper bus station?

The streets around Blackpool town centre are clogged with buses trying to use commercial streets to load, unload, take a break, await for their replacement driver.

Surely now is the time to use phase 2 of the Talbot Gateway to build a proper bus interchange that would put the town back on track to being in the 22nd century.

Mr A Balaam

Bangor Avenue

Bispham