Letters - Saturday December 26, 2020

I’m aware that (for example) if we pay for an hour’s parking at a council run parking space that there is a ‘grace’ period of up to 10 minutes over this hour whereby a motorist cannot be liable for a parking charge.

What I did not know until recently was that there is a grace period for all car parks signed up to the British Parking Association, (BPA), of which there are many.

How it works is that when you drive into a private car park you are allowed between, a minimum of five minutes and up to 10 minutes to read their terms and conditions. The owners of the car park have to agree in advance this duration with BPA. See Section 13.1 of BPA’s terms.

If you are unhappy with these terms you should in most cases be able to drive away without a charge: note, a charge not a fine - a fine does not exist in this case as you may or not be entering upon what is essentially a civil contract.

I hope I’m not coming over too wordy but only mentioning this as I hear of so many Blackpool residents unwittingly caught up with charges that they can I’ll afford.

Mike Marlow

via email

Appeal

Support mental health of nurses

People right across Blackpool stood outside at 8pm on Thursday nights to ‘clap for carers.’

This demonstrated the strength of goodwill and support for our health and social care staff and the crucial roles they played, and continue to play, during the pandemic.

But that has taken its toll.

Some 24 per cent of 4,063 nurses and midwives across the UK, surveyed between 28 April 2020 and 12 May 2020, said they were suffering severe or extremely severe depression.

But this was a stressful job long before Covid reared its ugly head.

In just six years between 2011 and 2017, at least 307 NHS nurses took their own lives.

Although the 320,000 NHS nursing staff can be referred to local mental health services, research has shown that they feel they may be stigmatised if they disclose a mental illness to their employer.

Post Covid it is expected we will see an increase in anxiety, stress, depression, or other psychiatric illnesses.

NIGHT, a new charity, www.nightfornurses.co.uk, is currently fundraising to ensure that every nurse, midwife, or healthcare assistant who requests confidential help can access it. Clapping for them was moving and emotional, supporting their mental health is even more important.

Peter Arndt

The Nightingale Initiative for Global Healthcare Transformation (NIGHT)

Politics

Amused by ‘right wing’ Tory rant

I was somewhat amused by the right wing Tory rant by Terry Palmer (Your Say, December 21) and I feel that I need to reply.

Mr Palmer seems to think that those on the left are all “idiotic” and “Marxists” and goes on to describe Sir Keir Starmer as a “smarmy Lawyer”.

Sir Keir (pictured) has experience of working as the Head of the Crown Prosecution Service and is therefore the ideal person to face Boris at the dispatch box, because he is used to working with criminals.

When we look at the Tories’ extreme right they include such factions as the Brexit Party, The English Defence League, The National Front and of course The Bigoted Nasty People. These are all part of the same group.

Another section of the Tory Party and “one that needs replacing soon” is the group at the top with the Chief Clown Boris Johnson, with Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock and Michael Gove.

All of these are accomplished liars and bullies, Graduates of the Pritti Patel School of Bullying. They go on the Andrew Marr show and use it as a 20-30 minute slot to waffle on and keep pushing him back as he tries to ask questions with, “No. I’ll just finish my point”.

He also complains that Sir Keir does not say what he would actually do! It is the Tories who are in power and when Sir Keir offers advice the Chief Clown immediately rejects it out of hand.

Terry Bennett

Dinmore Avenue

Blackpool