Letters - Monday, October 4, 2021

I was pleased to read the special report in The Gazette (September 29) about the £21m project to build a cinema and new Wilko store and two restaurants at the Houndshill Shopping Centre.

What l cannot understand though is the ill-thought out lousy timing of starting the works during the busy illumination season, especially when town centre retailers are trying their best to recover from the impact of the covid pandemic.

Surely starting the works in January next year would have made more common sense and hopefully given retailers a chance of a near normal Christmas trading period.

The works and three-way traffic light system will lead to very long delays and lengthy queues of motorists trying to gain access to and from the Houndshill car park and will have a negative impact on trade in the run-up to Christmas.

Common sense does not seem to be very common at Blackpool council.

Anthony Flint

Long term Blackpool town centre retailer with basic common sense

RESPONSE

Race spectators generate the CO2

Interesting to read, ‘Go glue yourself to track at Silverstone (Your Say, September 29).

Formula one activities generate around 250,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year - equivalent to around 30,000 houses.

However, the actual races are responsible for only 0.7 per cent of this, the rest of carbon dioxide generation are attributable to those directly involved in the activity, and those travelling to and from the races. This is put at around 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

Like any event that spectators attend, it appears that that is where the real pollution is generated.

Mike Marlow

Via email

ENERGY

Worse is still yet to come

All those protesters selfishly blocking roads such as the M25 have seen nothing yet. As the green and woke agendas ‘kick-in’, an energy Armageddon is approaching.

Unbelievably, this is due to the insane policy of pursuing large scale wind and solar farms in the UK – chickens coming home to roost for Boris Johnson and his fantasy of wind power!

Eye-watering increases in the cost of energy are the writing on the wall, and there is more trouble yet to come in the form of blackouts.

Dave Haskell

Address supplied

ENVIRONMENT

Climate clamour is misguided

Isn’t the current clamour over climate change and carbon reduction just hypocritical misguided propaganda?

What do both politicians and Royals travel by? Big limousines and planes. This country is not anywhere near self-sufficient now.

DS Boyes

Address supplied

TRAGEDY

How did Couzens go undetected?

The murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens will go down in the annals of crime as one of the most shocking. Couzens is clearly depraved. In the absence of capital punishment he got the sentence he deserved.

It is very disturbing that many allegations of his sexual misbehaviour over several years were not investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

To permit him to transfer to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Branch, where vetting is rightly severe, is very perplexing and disturbing.

The Commissioner cannot be held response for the conduct of every policeman but unfortunately the MET has a long history of proven corrupt and unworthy behaviour, some among its senior ranks.

Although a minority, it has sullied its reputation; the Couzens case has rocked it to its foundations.

If we lose trust in the guardians of law and order we will ask as did the ancient Greeks: ‘Who guards the guardians’.

Although crimes against defenceless women are abhorrent and are examples of male power complexes it is important to remember that the majority are committed in the home by males who are known to the victim.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

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