Letters - May 8, 2017

With all these wonderful changes taking place around the Talbot gateway, please can we have a real bus station like most other towns, with a waiting room, refreshments , and most of all shelter, Bonny street and Talbot Road are a joke.

Jean Bleasdale

North Shore

GATEWAY

Raindrops keep 
falling on my head...

Raindrops are falling on my head. I used to like this song, but not a very pleasant experience, when waiting for a bus on Abingdon Street.

Why are most of the glass roofs missing? Are they badly constructed, or it it the yob element?

Where does the responsibility for repair belong, Blackpool Council or Blackpool Transport? I suspect each are passing the buck. This state of affairs has gone on far too long.

Kevin Gooder

Clinton Avenue, Blackpool

BREXIT

EU should submit 
its own accounts

So the EU member states have just announced that one of the pre-conditions of starting the Brexit negotiations is that the UK must pay a £50bn “ divorce settlement ”.

Notwithstanding we are not ethically or legally required to pay this, I just wonder how they arrived at this figure because, as we all know, for the past 40 years or so, the EU’s officially audited annual accounts have not been signed off ( settled ) because of financial irregularities.

We should respond to this by saying that up until the time we actually leave, we would be willing to consider honouring our financial obligations, but on condition they submit properly audited accounts (let’s be reasonable), say for the previous 10 years, so we can see how much money each member has put in the kitty and how much each member has received back, with receipts and tangible evidence as to what the money has been spent on.

Of course, this will not happen and therefore we should reject this demand, which just adds more credibility to the fact that the vote to leave the EU was the right one.

This money would go a long way toward easing the pressures on the NHS and care for the elderly – to give it to the EU to be squandered would be madness!

Mike 
Gleeson

Address supplied

FUNDRAISING

Thank you for 
helping Lifeboat

On behalf of Blackpool Lifeboat Station we would like to say a big thank you to management, staff and customers of Morrisons, Amy Johnson Way, for all their help raising £452.70 at a recent collection in the store.

Christine Parry

Secretary, RNLI

NHS

Remember your nursing heroes

Across the North West, nursing staff are preparing to celebrate a day very close to our hearts. Nurses’ Day is marked around the world each year on May 12 – the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.

It is a time when we come together to celebrate the work that nurses and healthcare assistants do every day of the year, a hard-working army of thousands going above and beyond for their patients.

Some nurses will use the day to have a tea party, run a conference, or simply take a short time out from their busy schedule for lunch – something a lot of people take for granted, but which for nursing staff can be a luxury.

This year, the Royal College of Nursing is celebrating nurses for the superheroes they are.

Your readers can help by telling their stories of how nurses and healthcare assistants have been their heroes.

If they are on Facebook or Twitter, they need to use the hashtag #nurseheroes and tag us @RCNNorthWest. Our members greatly appreciate the support they receive from the public. Our nursing staff will do their best to continue to be your heroes.

Paul Wood

Operational Manager

RCN North West

TECHNOLOGY

The non online are
discriminated against

Have you noticed how many things can now only be done online?

Considering that I have never seen it suggested that it is illegal not to own a computer, the list is too long.

The group of people which does not have online access is becoming one of the most discriminated against and disadvantaged set of folk in the land.

A recent survey has shown that 90 per cent of the best-paying savings accounts are online only.

Need to apply for or renew a ‘blue badge’ for disabled parking?

Online only.

Completing a lifestyle questionaire can reduce a health insurance premium – but that’s online only.

Participate in a supermarket promotion with the chance of a prize?

Online only.

National savings has introduced a new bond much vaunted in the last budget but – you’ve guessed it – it’s online only. The list goes on and on.

It would only take HM Revenue and Customs to decree that all the returns had to be online and they could send all the (mainly old) people without computers to prison for failing to submit them.

Come to think of it, there could be the seeds here of a solution to the otherwise insolvable problem of social care!

Neil Inkley

Address supplied