Letters - March 14, 2016

I suppose we now will get the usual empty expressions of sympathy from the politicians.

The rigmarole dreamed up by the privatisation zealots was that these national monopolies selling the same gas and electric be divided into a group of suppliers to compete on customer service and bills to bring benefits to consumers by what they call the rigours of competition.

Yet each customer has only one power cable and gas pipe. Once again employees are sacked, and will feel aggrieved that they lose while the company heads survive.

Taxpayers should also feel short changed, this latest scandal in an industry we all owned in common. Our gas and electric providers were built up through decades of public investment.

All the gimmicks about regulation or switching supplies hide the reality that these natural monopolies must be returned to public ownership and without delay.

Royston Jones

Beryl Avenue

Anchorsholme

COMMUNICATION

An easy way to cut out nuisance calls

In response to David Mitchell’s letter (Gazette, March 11), I offer this simple solution to cold calls to anyone who has an answerphone.

Five years ago I deleted the standard oral greeting and recorded my own greeting, which goes like this: “This is the phone number of [my name], please identify yourself or your call will not be answered – otherwise please leave your message after the tone.” As soon as the cold caller hears the words “identify yourself” they hang up. Genuine callers (family, friends etc) have nothing to fear in identifying themselves.

In all that time I have never had to respond to a single nuisance call, and on only two occasions did they have the nerve to identify themselves – which, of course, I did not answer. This method costs nothing and I have even noticed the cold calls appear to be diminishing.

Bruce Maclennan

Faringdon Avenue

Blackpool

TRANSPORT

We should all move below Watford Gap

I must write about more bus cuts for us in Lancashire again.

While Boris in London orders 124-plus new buses costing millions, us up north again get old buses, old trains or even no buses and no trains.

We should all go and live below the Watford Gap.

Richard Armstrong

Cherry Tree Road

Marton

COUNCIL

Left reeling by a sense of betrayal

If Shakespeare were alive today, he would say that “something is rotten in the state of Wyre”.

There is now an agenda regarding planning meetings, to silence opposition to Wyre’s insane house building program, which has always ignored the consequences. The proof is in the pudding, as the A585 and link roads are now over capacity.

The rejection of the Stanah application was an artifice to fool the public into thinking that they listen.

It will go ahead, as Wyre council wants it to, just like fracking.

That hasn’t stopped them from approving another 500 houses in Poulton,before the consultation process for the Windy Harbour ‘improvement’ has begun. That’s if it gets the go-ahead and isn’t rejected like the yellow route by Wyre Council and one Singleton councillor.

But it gets better. The CEO was given a nine per cent rise for having more power, sorry responsibility, so you the residents pay an extra £30 a year!

Unsurprisingly, he will have direct control of ‘planning’, as he is a former planner, responsible for Hawley Gardens, which is subject to an investigation regarding contamination from the former ICI plant.

This surely adds up to a developer-led council acting outside the public interest.

It’s as poisonous as the chemicals that were ‘removed’ from the Hawley Gardens estate prior to it being built. Will the CEO pay for the residents’ costs regarding the investigation into contamination, as he was the planner who approved it?

What will he do with £1.8million which Wyre Borough Council gets for having more houses built? Use it to improve the roads that they have gridlocked?

It seems that this council conserves nothing and if you are a Conservative, then you must be reeling from this shocking sense of betrayal. I know I am.

David Power

Fleetwood Road North

Thornton

ANIMALS

People ARE more important than pets

I am sure I am not the only reader who gets tired of regular correspondent Josephine Harwood’s letters regarding pets, particularly cats.

You recently printed a letter from someone pointing out to this lady that people were more important at a time the Lakes and Yorkshire were suffering terrible flooding, yet the Bispham lady was asking for donations for cats.

My donation went to the Lakes flood relief appeal.

Marlene MacFarlane

Devonshire Road

Blackpool