Letters - January 16, 2018

What a fantastic result by a BBC team.

The programme, Fighting for Air, 9-10pm on Wednesday night, showed that trees can reduce air pollution for pedestrians and schoolchildren by as much as 30 per cent.

Pollution was reduced by a range of methods, from streamlining traffic sequencing to more green vegetation lining the streets.

Let’s build on the announcement of a new Northern Forest that will spread from Leeds to Liverpool.

It aims to replace the bulldozing of trees by the planned HS2.

Let’s plant thousands of oak saplings and ash, to replace the trees lost to ash dieback.

N Bywater

Via email

I love trees, and forests.

News of the so-called Northern Forest should fill me with joy then, right?

Wrong!

A primeval forest in the making, it is not...

Saplings will be rammed on to wasteland on the edge of motorways and on roundabouts. Whips will be squashed on the sides of shopping centre car parks and at junctions. Many of them will be vandalised and choked by fumes and litter. Others will probably die off in a few decades’ time when this ‘initiative’ is forgotten.

Hardly something that will fill us with wonder.

I suspect the real reason for the Northern Forest is somewhat more similar.

It is a ruse to allow rural development to take place more easily - particularly fracking. Much more green field development could be permitted as long as the developer offsets his encroachment into the country by buying a few scrawny trees for a section of hard shoulder. After all, when was the last time a Government, especially this insidious collection of political minnows, ever do anything just for the good of the people or the environment.?

What’s the endgame here?

Richard Tandy

Talbot Road
Blackpool

COLUMN

Steve right to take stand on shop deal

I read Steve Canavan’s column (The Gazette, January 10) and have to agree with him, that it can be frustrating dealing with supermarkets when it comes to their special deals.

My experience is that many stores are deliberately ambiguous when it comes to labelling special offers.

Then, when you get to the till and realise what you have chosen is not in the special offer, you often cannot be bothered to challenge it and end up paying full price for something you wouldn’t have bought otherwise.

Today I purchased two boxes of Felix cat food after they were both on the same shelf which declared ‘two boxes for £7.50’.

But when I got to the till, the special offer did not apply.

This was because I had chosen two different types of Felix which were each a different price, and you could not mix and match.

However the labels on the shelf did not make this clear.

This time, instead of just paying up, I complained the labelling was ambiguous.

They did eventually allow me to purchase them at the special price.

I only saved about £1.50 but, like Steve, it was the principle of the matter.

Some supermarkets, I believe, are quite happy to deliberately mislead customers.

Each small amount of money not challenged just adds to their profits.

C.Bolton

Marton
Blackpool

TRUMP

Help is needed not condemnation

Maybe I come from a different time but I was always taught - if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything - a lesson that seems to have been forgotten or ignored by most politicians and especially President Trump.

President Trump has described El Salvador and Haiti in most unpleasant terms that indicated a limited vocabulary. Both countries have suffered from major weather events and need support rather than condemnation.

Many individuals and now countries are suffering from the consequences of bullying - a potentially destructive outcome. We, the world in general, should look for the positive and solutions to problems.

Leaders should lead from the front - they should provide the best examples. I am not certain that this is so common now.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Address supplied

TRANSPORT

Lets’ get going on new line to port

I must write about a recent article about opening the railway line to Fleetwood.

Railway people have been saying it for years. As a member of Fylde Rail Users Association, we have been pushing for this for a long time with local councillors, MPs and Network Rail etc.

The track is cleared of overgrowth from Poulton to Thornton towards Fleetwood.

The town of Fleetwood needs the railway back, due to redevelopment of the docks and all the new houses being built.

It is in my new railway magazine, as on the books in parliament, to get the rail link back to Fleetwood. Mr Maynard, Mr Grayling let’s get going.

Mr Armstrong

(Ex British Rail)
Cherry Tree Court
Marton