Letters - Monday, August 9, 2021

Yet another store has shut up shop, Disney in Hounds Hill, and we hope signatures collected for the keep open campaign (‘Petition over Disney shop’ Gazette, August 5) will have enough impact for the company to think again.

However, they’re not closing altogether are they? Customers can still order merchandise on line. This is also the case with Debenhams and other stores no longer on our high streets – they’re gone but only out of sight!

With a click to the internet, they’re still on board. Which goes to show that it’s far more economical to sell merchandise on the internet than in town centres. They have none of the rent and overheads they pay for the privilege of owning a shop so, while local councils merely spitting in the wind by trying hard to attract business to our shopping centres, indoor and out?

How far will it go before we’re left with the odd theatre here and there, for those fortunate enough to still have them, along with other entertainment venues, as well as cafes, restaurants and fast food outlets, which might be all we have left.

You can’t blame them really when costs are high and companies want large profits when they’re not just there to look pretty.

Perhaps cafes and restaurants, too, may become a thing of the past and we order online and the traditional ‘cuppa’ in town becomes a delivery advert: “Did somebody say ‘Just Drink!?’”

Clifford Chambers

Ashton Road, Blackpool

TRANSPORT

There is an upside to the HS2 saga

The recent indications that Phase 2B, the Eastern leg from Birmingham to Leeds, may be at best shelved or even cancelled, has brought out all the usual uninformed comments and off-the-cuff jibes about HS2.

A counter argument so rarely hits the mainstream media or press. So I believe these aspects need to be considered:

1: The overall budget of around £100bn is spread over at least 30 years;

2: This expense will predominantly be spent on employing multitudes of British companies and their employees;

Currently very large contracts are being undertaken by civil engineering conglomerates on the London to Birmingham leg. Smaller multi million contracts such as that to a Bolton company for access/ escape doors in tunnels are an example of keeping Northern companies involved;

3: The costs of these contracts will result in billions being paid in income tax and NHI back to HMRC benefitting the UK economy and public sector services;

4: The end product will be an efficient, quick and energy saving mode of transport that will negate the need for dirty fuel systems such as short haul aircraft journeys between London and the North notwithstanding crowded motorways;

5: HS2 will free up existing North/South railways to give capacity for container trains, which can each take 50 juggernauts off our roads and more comprehensive local services;

6: The ongoing maintenance of the infrastructure and trains will provide hi-tech employment in the UK for many years and revive the British train building industry.

The NIMBYs have made much of the destruction to our countryside.

This has so far resulted in critical lengths of the railway out of London being tunnelled, hence the large increase in budget over the last 10 years.

Much the same was said in the 50s and 60s about the motorway building programme, what would we have done without that progressing?

The pandemic has thrown a massive spanner in the economy, but like Roosevelt in the 1930s, and Labour after the Second World War, I believe this and future governments need to bite the bullet and spend on infrastructure such as HS2 and East to West Northern railway links, with all the employment and benefits, rather than pull back and offer only decades of stagnation.

Philip Crowther

via email

CHANNEL

The French should police these boats

This is just a thought due to the news about RNLI crews picking up illegal migrants to this country.

What concerns me, is why the French are allowing these people to put their lives at risk crossing the channel in small boats without life jackets? They are at risk long before they leave French waters – is that not of concern to people? I know it is to me.

Why is the French equivalent to the RNLI or Navy not rescuing these people? It seems they have little, if any, compassion for the safety of these people.

David Speight

via email

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