Letters - January 16, 2019

Street lights are dim when needed most
One of the new LED street lights.One of the new LED street lights.
One of the new LED street lights.

Regarding Mr McGarry’s street lights in Palatine Close, Normoss, being too dim (The Gazette, January 2), I, too, contacted Lancashire County Council a few weeks ago, to complain about the dim lighting on Whitemoss Avenue, resulting in me being unable to see the two steps down at the front door after dark.

This was their response: “The new lanterns give greater energy efficiency and require far less maintenance. However, the light they give out is quite different. LED lighting is more directional, it is a white light and gives a different feel to the illuminated area, when compared to the sodium, yellow light it replaces.

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“The lanterns have been changed in line with Lancashire County Council policy to save energy, due to constraints in budgets from central Government. The lanterns are set to dim from 7pm at night until 7am.

“The energy and maintenance savings achieved by the installation of LED, and dimming, will hopefully allow us to avoid less palatable options, such as part nights or permanent switch-off.”

Surely the lights are needed most from 7pm to 7am!

I can understand a dimming of the lights from say, 12pm, to 6am, when most people are asleep. The statement that their policy will allow them to avoid less palatable options, such as part night, or permanent switch off, seems ludicrous.

A large proportion of our council tax goes to LCC, some of it for street lighting (and this has increased each year by two per cent for the last four years). Under the circumstances, therefore, a refund would be in order, for unsatisfactory street lighting.

Mrs J Geddes

Whitemoss Avenue
Normoss

PRISON

It’s not justice, it’s
a laughing stock

What the hell is this Government thinking?

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Do they really think that rewarding criminals is going to deter them from reoffending?

In the past few weeks we have been told that there will be a landline phone installed in all cells, followed by the news that prisoners will be given a laptop apiece.

Now the Government is going to stop sending to jail anyone with less than a six-month sentence. This is not a justice system, it’s a laughing stock.

No wonder the criminals are queuing up to get back in.

No worries about expenses and bills, jobs and food prices.

In fact put me down for one if Theresa May and Co have time, it reads better than any hotel I’ve been in.

Paul Morley

via email

POLITICS

Election demand must be heard

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Thousands of anti-austerity protesters from all over Britain have taken to the streets of London calling for a general election to replace this failing Tory government.

Britain is broken with this government letting their brutal neo-liberal austerity continue apace.

Privatisation has hollowed out our public services. Insecure work, depressed wages and spiralling housing costs have ripped future dreams and security out of people’s hands. Whether 600 homeless people who have died on our streets and four million adults using foodbanks last, and families sink further into debt, the demand for a general election to sweep aside this shambolic government must be heard all over.

This government have put their own squabbles before the issues facing this country.

It’s time to cast them into the dustbin of history.

Royston Jones

Anchorsholme

POLITICS

Corbyn would create dystopian nightmare

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Irrespective of the outcome of last night’s vote, the behaviour of what remains of the Labour rump has been reprehensible.

Not once in over two-and-a-half years has Corbyn or his shallow colleagues offered a single positive alternative to the PM’s strategy. All we have been given is platitudes, hot air and sweeping generalities.

We know why of course. They haven’t a clue as to what they would do. Split from top to bottom over the EU their ineptness was amply demonstrated by the shadow foreign secretary on Question Time .

Fiona Bruce had to point out to the hapless Thornberry that the audience was laughing at her. The judge’s wife scowled.

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The suggestion that Corbyn and his Marxist crew could govern this country is risible. They would turn it into a dystopian nightmare.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

BREXIT

No-deal is 
best scenario

A no-deal scenario is what should have happened in the first place.

The EU is more fearful of us leaving than we are. It joins the Remainers in manufacturing facts and figures to conceal, and suppress, their fears.

Denis Angood

Address supplied