Letters - Thursday, November 18, 2021

New attractions will need more parking
New attractions will only cause more car parking problemsNew attractions will only cause more car parking problems
New attractions will only cause more car parking problems

I share concerns regarding the horrendous shortage of parking that is available for workers, the stay-cationers, the residents and the tourists that travel in by car.

Travelling in by public transport is only convenient to those that live close along the routes they travel.

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Bringing in 3,000 plus ‘office workers’ into our town centre will, without doubt, further reduce the already atrocious car park availability for retail shoppers. There may well be an increased footfall, but this will only be before and after the shops open, with a brief potential burst at lunchtime.

Places like West Street car park were quite often full before the necessity for Premier Inn guests to use this facility arrived, reducing still further the available spaces. Imagine the utter chaos if we were to attract retailers to occupy our vacant shop units only to find that Blackpool becomes a hotspot for exhaust emissions being expelled from vehicles that continue to drive from one parking area to another only to find them full and move on to the next.

We also have a new five-star hotel in the town centre that is nearing completion, but without its own parking facilities, and another hotel which sees the loss of the Wilkos’ multi-story car park.

Where on earth are the additional 600,000 tourists going to park, that the ‘theatre in the sky’ attraction is expected to bring into Blackpool?

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Meanwhile, we are seeing installations like plant pots appearing on streets like Topping Street at the loss of car parking, the increase of double-yellow lines and ill-placement of disabled bays.

We don’t want to end up with a ghost town, so we have to look at schemes to attract retailers and provide conveniently located parking on their doorsteps.

Glenn Priestley

Via email

PARKING

Returning to store could cost you

Grandad George (Bad experience at the car park, Your Say, November 13) warns about parking charges. It might interest readers to note that the Aldi/B&M/PetsRus car park site at Holyoake Road run by Parking Eye does not permit a return for four hours.

Pop back for a forgotten item, return a damaged item or visit one of the other shops within four hours and you would face a substantial charge – and the usual opaque one-sided ‘appeal’ process.

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Considering at least two of the stores are seeking to make shopping more economical, it would make a huge dent in your finances.

Simon Cox

Bispham

PENSIONS

MPs really don’t look after us

Bearing in mind that the Retirement Pension is a paid-for entitlement with built-in increases to keep in line with cost of living inflation, this is probably my shortest letter to the Blackpool Gazette.

Anybody who believes politicians are elected and paid for by the electorate to represent and look after the interests of the electorate must be insane. The Fylde MP Mark Menzies even voted against the welfare of his electorate in God’s waiting room!

Peter K Roberts

Warton

POLITICS

Johnson is past his sell-by date

Well, it looks like the two biggest polluters in the world – China and India – are not going to reduce fossil fuel emissions until at least 2070, by which time if you wanted to go on holiday to low lying islands such as the Maldives, the only way that you will see them is by scuba diving because they will be immersed under water.

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You have only to look at our own winter temperatures to see that they are well above where they should be for mid-November.

I think that the most jaw-dropping moment at Cop26 in Glasgow was when our great leader stood up when making a speech and stunned the delegates listening by publicly stating that “Britain was not corrupt”.

REALLY!

And on another occasion, whilst keeping out of the way of the sleaze debate in Parliament, he was filmed waltzing around a hospital without a mask whilst all around him were wearing them.

This buffoon of a man is well past his sell-by date and the men in grey suits from the 1922 Committee should have long ago been knocking on his door and saying that his time is up.

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Whichever way you look at it, everything that Boris Johnson touches turns to dust, whether it’s his ‘Brexit’ agreement, tackling sleaze or putting his foot in it with regards to the Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe fiasco.

I am absolutely sure that any right-minded Conservative MP must be cringing about what is happening to their party.

M Tipper

Lancashire

ELECTIONS

Voter ID scheme needs a rethink

Whatever the benefits of the Government’s plan to spend £120 million every decade on demanding photo identification at polling stations, the list of forms of ID that are allowed should be as broad as possible.

Government ministers recently revealed the unfairness of their plans – older people’s railcards will be accepted at the polling booth, but younger people’s railcards won’t be.

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It seems that even veterans’ ID cards will be accepted, but university ID cards won’t be.

When it comes to who can vote and who can’t, we must not have a system where the list of acceptable ID cards looks based on how the Government thinks the holders of those cards might vote.

The Electoral Reform Society has been calling for the Government to pause this scheme and rethink. I can’t help but agree with them.

Jennifer King

Address supplied

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