Letters - March 22, 2016

Apparently there has been fantastic news announced recently that 3,000 jobs are going to be created in a new enterprise zone on the site of Blackpool Airport’s terminal building and surrounding area. Don’t get too excited. Ask yourself a few questions. How many people does it take to build the buildings and roads?

Will these people come from the surrounding area, reducing the unemployment on the Fylde?

How many people will it take to run these businesses?

How many more of these enterprise zones do we actually need?

How is turning a part of the airport into an enterprise zone going to benefit the tourist industry in the Fylde? How can the zone become successful if the unemployment in the Fylde is so high?

When Ryanair flew daily flights into the airport, thousand of people from the south of the country visited such areas as Lytham, St Annes, Fleetwood and of course Blackpool. The majority of those people had never even visited the Fylde coast before. But because they had enjoyed their experience so much, many of them commented to the airport staff that they would be returning later in the year to see the illuminations. Flights like these brought a lot of revenue into the Fylde, as many people seemed to have forgotten.

Blackpool and the Fylde have a reputation for attracting businessmen who only want to take money out of the area instead of reinvesting. Blackpool itself is becoming more and more run down and famous for stag and hen parties. Immigrants and drug dealers as well as people on benefits are increasingly becoming the majority, taking money out of the system without contributing.

Blackpool used to be regarded as a family holiday town but because of the once cheap foreign holiday trade it has sadly suffered over the past few decades. If it wasn’t for its reputation in providing fun for the stag and hens where would the revenue come from?

Something has to change in Blackpool and the Fylde to stop its demise. Investments not only in the airport but attractions in the area would create a bigger tourist industry. Attractions that do not rely on good weather such as a winter sports arena with ski slope etc.

At the moment, when people visit Blackpool all they see is hotels and businesses that are closed or run down. In my opinion, the owners of these rundown buildings should be told by the council that if they don’t act on restoration then they will be fined or a compulsory purchase order will be enforced.

Someone needs to act soon, as Blackpool is slowly becoming a slum and a drug dealer’s paradise.

Philip Mumby

via email

ECONOMY

Labour are party of fiscal responsibility

Following the Budget and the dissection of it by the press and economists; we see it unravelling so fast that even the Tory backbenchers are in revolt over the unfair attacks on disability benefit.

Other losses to the more vulnerable in society at the expense of the better off, is appalling. The Labour party have rightly called for the Government to scrap cuts to personal independence payments, which are effectively funding the lower rates of capital gains tax. Osborne now faces a rebellion in his party over the plan to cut payments for the disabled who need to pay for aids.

More astonishing, in figures obtained from the House of Commons library by researchers, it is revealed that Conservative governments, over a 70-year period, borrowed more pro rata than when Labour were in office. Conservatives, however, always seem to win the argument that you can’t trust Labour on the economy. The House of Parliament statistics, even when figures are adjusted to allow for inflation, we learn two very important facts. The data always shows Labour borrowed less than the Conservatives and secondly, Labour has always repaid debt more often than the Conservatives.

These significant findings are crucial in querying why Conservatives distort the reality of fiscal policy they devise, when realistically Osborne has missed his fiscal targets and is set to borrow another £38. 5bn more than planned. While half a million disabled people are set to lose over £1bn in payments, tax cuts for the better off and tax breaks for corporations are granted.

Roy Lewis

Haddon Road

Blackpool

ECONOMY

Osborne is losing money for us all

On Budget day, Sky News quietly posted an exclusive analysis of figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Their findings show the taxpayer is set to lose nearly £22bn from George Osborne’s planned sale of our shares in the RBS bank.

What could we buy?

If Osborne didn’t keep mishandling the nation’s finances, our public institutions would be looking a whole lot better. The £22bn we are set to lose from RBS shares could pay for either:

* 103,000 nurses for 10 years (an annual starting wage of £21,388);

* 5,946 primary schools (an average cost of £3,700,000 each);

* 147,000 affordable homes (an average cost of £150,000 each;)

* 40 state-of-the-art hospitals (based on the £545,000,000 cost of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham).

But no, the opportunity will be squandered, while we are enduring an unprecedented housing crisis and an NHS buckling under austerity.

An ordinary person would be sacked.

John Horrocks

via email