Readers' letters - January 18

Pupils won't be able to travel to school

I am writing about the article, Worry over disastrous bus changed to service 150/151 (LEP January 16).

What a nightmare for all the residents and children in the area!

My son goes to Walton-le-Dale High School.

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The school does not provide a bus service to pupils who live in the Gregson Lane area, therefore my son and many other pupils have to rely on this bus service.

When this service is pulled in February, my son, along with many other pupils, are unable to get to school.

This will also affect workers travelling to Bamber Bridge and to Preston, and also students going to college.

I also feel sorry for the elderly people who don’t drive. It’s terrible.

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They are pulling this service without any consideration of the local residents this will affect.

Anonymous

Pictured: Preston Bus Station

Decent, honest people in our city

Re: Lost purse on January 14 in Poundland, St George’s Shopping Centre.

Many people say that the ‘world has gone to pot’, ‘people aren’t honest anymore’ and so on.

I write following a shopping ‘expedition’ to the above store on Saturday.

I am paraplegic and totally reliant on a wheelchair.

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My partner, Judith, and I went to Poundland and bought a number of items which were processed by the young woman on the till.

The tills were all very busy at the time.

During the payment process I unwittingly dropped my purse, containing a fair amount of cash, and, of course, the handful of credit cards and the like.

I did not realise my error until more than an hour later.

Judith returned to the shop on the ‘off-chance’ that the purse had been discovered and handed in.

We didn’t really think that it would have…

We were amazed that, not only had a fellow shopper handed in the purse to the till operator, but she immediately realised that the purse belonged to me.

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Additionally, I was impressed that both she, and the store manager, also recognised Judith as having been my shopping companion when she returned to the store to enquire about the purse.

While we will never know which member(s) of the public did the good deed, we did know the store staff concerned. Judith attempted to provide a modest reward for the staff efficiency.

I thought that ‘a drink on us’ was an appropriate gesture.

The store manager and other store staff members told Judith that they were not allowed to accept any payment from any customer, other than for payment of goods.

I am greatly impressed and very grateful to the member(s) of the public for their personal integrity and I hope that they see this letter, which I also hope will remind readers that there are decent, honest people in our community.

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Well done to Poundland staff, well done the people of Preston!

Thanks to all concerned.

Keith M Lewin

Leyland

energy

A world leader

in tidal power

It was heartwarming to learn recently that common sense is apparently about to prevail in that a past Energy Government Minister is supporting the proposal to build a Tidal Lagoon in Swansea Bay to produce naturally the much needed power into our National Electricity Grid, which now is proposed to be provided from future foreign sponsored nuclear installations.

He has seen the economic sense in our harnessing the world’s natural second highest tidal flow which we enjoy in this country to produce electricity, without producing any CO2 emissions to increase global warming.

I wrote a letter to PM David Cameron in 2013 endorsing this very proposed project, then seeking planning permission and being actively worked on by Mark Sharrock, an entrepreneur, in conjunction with other major power and turbine companies.

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He was prepared to fund this project with £2m of his own money.

At that time Parliament was considering financing the umpteenth version of the Severn Tidal Barrage since 1925, comprising an 11-mile long dam across the Severn Estuary containing underwater turbines capable of producing five per cent of the nation’s electricity needs. However, this would close down access to the port of Bristol and would take 12 years to build at the then cost of £25bn.

The ultimate deterrent to this proposal, besides the duration and the cost, was the inevitable destruction of 96 bird nesting sites along the estuary, opposed by the RSPB, together with other sanctions from the EU.

If final permission is now granted by the Swansea Bay Fisheries Authority for this project to proceed and prove successful, several of these lagoons could be constructed in the Severn Estuary without closing the Port of Bristol or affecting the bird nesting sites.

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This, together with other suggested UK coastal locations, could make us a world leader in self-sufficient tidal power electricity production and provide experience and knowledge for us to export this technology elsewhere in the world.

E J Tilley

Chorley

nostalgia

My happy times with The Echoes

The above Looking

Back photo of our band,

The Echoes, was taken in 1963. Unfortunately, I cannot recall the name of the Preston club in which we were playing.

The line-up of the band members (left to right) is: Carleton Gabriel, Ken Baines, myself (Tony Wignall) and Alan Hayes.

Contact with the group members was lost when the band broke up due to the pursing of other activities, but the memories remain.

A happy time!

Tony Wignall

Preston

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