Letters - Thursday, September 30. 2021

I refer you to my letter (Your Say, December 28, 2016) - and to others whose predictions about congestion issues have come true...

In particular I refer to the fact that despite numerous attempts to contact Blackpool Council/ transport bosses over several years, no answers have been offered as to how dozens of tramway journeys up and down Talbot Road every day would not cause severe congestion affecting the whole area.

My wife and I were on Abingdon Street recently approaching Talbot Road and I remarked how busy it seemed. We soon found out why!

The traffic on Abingdon Street tailed back into Clifton Street. When we reached Talbot Road the whole of Talbot Road right back to beyond Topping Street was tail to tail traffic. I believe it’s called congestion!

This is exactly as I forecast in emails to the council going back several years, and also in my letters to the Gazette.

In the proposed timetables for the tramway extension (pictured) there will be literally dozens of times during every day when at least one tram will be likely to be on Talbot Road.

All of the above observations occurred before any trams were using Talbot Road. It doesn’t take much imagination to come to the conclusion that any tram on Talbot Road at any time is going to cause confusion and congestion.

The fact is there will be several tram journeys every hour travelling up and down Talbot Road. Trams are 112ft long!

Will the council respond to this with actual answers as to how to get out of this unholy mess when they refuse to jettison the shovel?

There are numerous so-called improvements planned for Blackpool over the next few years, each which will inevitably bring even more traffic congestion issues. Good luck with all that.

Welcome to the biggest parking lot in the country!

Jack Gledhill

Blackpool

TRANSPORT

Future’s not bright for new bus firms

“Return of the bus is around the corner” said Stagecoach on June 1, and “we’re planning for the future,” blah, blah!

Profits down by 83 per cent, passenger numbers slumped by 90 per cent and revenues fallen by only 35 per cent thanks to regular cash injections from taxpayers. Gee thanks.

Fast forward four months and Stagecoach is now set to merge with National Express, which could be a relief, but at some financial cost to family and institutional shareholders.

Taxpayer support and Treasury subsidies will continue until next April, naturally.

True to form, up pops Unite, the trade union, confirming a high level of industrial unrest and unresolved pay disputes in northern Scotland, Manchester and Tyne, Wear & Tees areas, while the RMT transport union has organised strike ballots at Stagecoach depots in East Midlands, Yorkshire, South West & Wessex regions.

National shortage of HGV drivers, anyone ?

Few know whether, or if, bus passenger numbers will return to pre-pandemic levels; current evidence in parts of Lancashire are not encouraging with Stagecoach double-deckers still pounding some routes for 16 hours a day for no apparent social or economic purposes; buses are often running empty, passing through without a need to stop or serving a handful using bus passes.

You couldn’t make it up.

Ian R White

Address supplied

ENVIRONMENT

China must lead way on emissions

While it is right and proper that we, as a country, make every effort to reduce our carbon emissions, I am afraid it will make little difference to the whole scheme of things whilst China and similar countries continue to burn coal at their present rate.

No matter what efforts we make to influence them they will take little notice, believing themselves far superior to the rest of the world.

Peter Hyde

Via email

SOCIAL CARE

How do the Scots pay for their care?

I don’t know why financing social care in England and Wales is being made so complicated when the solution is on our doorstep north of the border.

They pay the same amount of tax as the English yet get not only just free social care but free prescriptions, free university fees, free hospital parking and free school meals for all. And under the Barnet formula every man, women and child in Scotland receives just under £2,000 more than the English.

So maybe we should ask the Scots how they do it.

Malcolm Nicholson

Address supplied

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