Readers' letters - August 9

Did you join in the Big Butterfly Hunt 2017?

This asks you to record the butterflies seen in your garden over a 15-minute period.

This count ended on August 6.

You probably didn’t see many this year. Last year was the fourth worst on record, showing the continual decline in butterfly numbers.

Butterfly Conservation Society uses this National Count to monitor butterfly numbers throughout the UK each year.

Thousands of volunteers work with Butterfly Conservation to improve and increase habitat for both butterflies and insects generally.

However, the decline continues and is thought to be mainly through farming practices which do not allow enough wild areas for insects and other wildlife to thrive on their land.

I would encourage all landowners, who are the custodians of our countryside and unaware of the serious decline in much of our wildlife, to offer such spaces, in the same way the Environmental Stewardship Scheme is designed to help biodiversity and the environment generally.

After all, without insects we wouldn’t be here on this planet!

James Hide

via email

EUROPEAN UNION

Nato is behind our peace

Gerald Hodgson (LP Letters, August 4) fails to acknowledge the role of Nato in keeping the peace in Europe for the last 70 years.

The main reason the EU countries have been peaceable is because they are all democracies, which do not declare war on each other.

They were democracies before joining the EU, by which time most of them had already joined Nato, which demands that its members be democracies and respect each other’s borders.

The conditions for peace on the continent were therefore in place, regardless of the EU’s influence.

Mr Hodgson is grateful that his grandsons have not had to go to war, but the fear, if we were to remain in the EU, is that if they succeed in forming a military force by majority vote, our troops could end up under a command that is not accountable to a robust democracy.

It is imperative that we completely remove ourselves from the control of the EU and its stultifying institutions, so that we can effectively uphold the values of democracy and freedom, which are so easily lost if we allow ourselves to take the soft options.

Thomas W Jefferson

via email

european union

Europe will suffer, not us

So the EU countries have decided to inconvenience UK citizens by making them wait in line for so-called security checks at the holiday airports.

What a childish lot they are.

Don’t they realise that Brits will either holiday at home or go to Thailand, China or Japan, where eating out is cheaper and the countries are far more interesting than over-crowded European beaches, rather than be blackmailed in this way? Their tourist industry will lose the revenue that many of these countries rely on to keep their economy afloat.

Thank goodness we are getting out from under their control.

Hilary Andrews

Address supplied

economy

Wrong move by Governor

The concern of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) about the availability of high-cost credit vulnerable customers is the fault of the Governor of the Bank of England, Mr Mark Carney.

After the Brexit vote last year, Mr Carney immediately cut the bank rate by 50 per cent to 0.25 per cent and the pound exchange rate dropped by over 10 per cent.

In my opinion, dropping interest rates by 50 per cent at such a low level meant nothing economically, but in political and financial terms sent completely the wrong message to our overseas trading partners and individual borrowers. The impression given would be one of financial fear and uncertainty.

What he should have done is raise the rate to one per cent and given notice to our overseas markets and the United Kingdom that the pound would remain a strong world currency and would be supported under Brexit.

At home, individual debtors would have to realise that cheap credit was going to be reduced and nationally, we should be expected to tighten our belts, ‘save to buy’, and be more prudent about living on other people’s money.

Instead, personal debt has continued to increase above a level at which it was already unsustainable. What we need now is an extended period of prudence – and an immediate rise in interest rates.

Paul Emsley

Address supplied

protests

Keep public highway open

Enough is enough ..... the disruption caused by anti- fracking protesters on the A583 Preston New Road has got to be stopped!

No matter what your opinion of shale gas exploration, there is no excuse for damaging tactics of these activists, who have taken to the main carriageway to completely close the road on no less than six occasions.

Peaceful protest is fine but should be kept on the roadside and verges.

What we have witnessed over the past few weeks with these repeated ‘lock-ons’ is unlawful. It is not just Cuadrilla but also the local residents and regular commuters who are suffering on a daily basis.

Yes, the police are doing a superb job, but surely more robust action is needed now to keep the public highway open.

Lytham resident

environment

Please clean up this eyesore

Re: The Skeffington Pub, on the corner of Skeffington Road, Preston.

This building is a disgrace.

The paint work on the building is disgusting, surely Preston Council can make whoever owns this building to clean it up?

There are flats in there.

What an eyesore.

I cannot believe Preston Council.

Preston is a city.

Please will someone do something.

Mrs A Hulme

via email