Letters - May 24, 2018

I read with interest Shelagh Parkinson’s report (The Gazette, May 18) on the proposed changes to the planning permission granted to the developers of Coastal Point on the corner of New South Promenade and Harrow Place (formerly Abbeydale Care Home site).

I thought the prospect of redeveloping the whole of the old Abbeydale site was a key factor in planning permission. The proposed changes, I assume, will leave the semi-derelict buildings at 6 to 8 Harrow Place untouched? If that is the case then I hope Blackpool’s Planning Committee has the courage to refuse the revised application.

I wonder why the developer wants to change the plans. The original application was strongly promoted by those involved and pushed through against local opposition and yet, now, they want to make revisions.

The dedicated website offering flats for sale at Coastal Point only shows two flats reserved in the first phase. And there are an awful lot of flats for sale elsewhere in Blackpool.

I think it would be disrespectful to local residents to push through this revised plan without a full and proper explanation of the reasons for the changes. After all it’s the local people, not the planning committee, who are affected by them.

R Tandman

Greystoke Court
Blackpool

POLITICS

You need lesson 
in democracy

In reply to the comments made by Kevin Benfold (Liberal Democrats) on educating the public on democracy (Gazette, May 16).

I think Mr Benfold and company it is you that wants educating on democracy. We had a referendum vote on Brexit and voted to come out of it. It is the likes of you and this House of Lords that is delaying the coming out of the EU.

It is only a job for the boys.

Paul Jones

Anchorsholme Lane
Blackpool

ENVIRONMENT

Plastic at anti-fracking site

The county is fighting the spread of plastic - or fighting how it is disposed of.

We’re fighting plastic on the beaches, on the roads, in the countryside - everywhere. The world is taking up the cudgel too. So everyone’s on the front line in this battle... or so I thought, until I drove past the anti-fracking site on Preston New Road.

My God! There’s plastic festooning the roadside and hedgerows like it’s going out of fashion! Plastic bottles strung up all over the place! Parts of Preston New Road look like that camp outside Calais, making the countryside look like a tip - a rubbish tip. Can’t the protesters see the damage this is doing to its cause?

Who’s going to clean up this mess? Whose idea was it to hang plastic bottles everywhere? Can we have a rates reduction due to having to see the spoiling of our countryside?

The messages now look tired, banal and in many instances, infantile.

So can we please have this plastic battle take place on Preston New Road too?

What a mess!

Mr P Webberley

Cedar Avenue
Warton

EDUCATION

Don’t call time 
on convention

I have been hearing it said that there are some children who can’t tell the time by the old conventional clocks with hands and they can tell the time much better with digital clocks.

Their schools shouldn’t have to ditch their old conventional clocks and have all digital instead.

Schools ought to teach their school children to tell the time by both of those types of clock.

On the 24-hour digital time system, do you know how to convert the times to the 12-hour system?

All you have to do is subtract 12 from the hour, for example, the time of 16.30 is: 16 take away 12 equals four, so it is 4.30pm

Dick 
Appleyard

Address supplied

SOCIETY

There’s a first time for everything...

This morning I observed an unusual occurrence.

At 8.40am I looked through my front window as a young mother was dragging her infant child towards school.

She, (the mother) did not have a mobile phone stuck to her ear.

There is always a first time for everything.

Mike Picewicz

Blackpool

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