Readers' letters - February 2


With the latest figures on homelessness, 2018 should be a crucial year.
Yet we say this every year and the problem grows.
This crisis-ridden Government is out of ideas.
Its flagship housing act, in May 2016, has disintegrated.
Its vaunted White Paper of September 2017 had nothing new – although they gave £44bn of subsidies to the failed private market.
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Hide AdAnd there was not a single commitment to the issue of rented homes.
Millions are desperately needed.
No attempt is made to understand why people are forced to sleep rough, and why this is even worse under the Tories.
There has been an attack on council housing since the 1980s, when Thatcher launched her campaign to sell homes to tenants at knock-down prices.
No government since then, of whatever political stripe, has accepted the need to invest in publicly owned rented homes at really affordable rents.
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Hide AdThey have maintained sales to sitting tenants and handed over entire estates, either directly to the private sector or to management organisations, who operate at arms-length.
Reducing the stocks of public housing obliges growing numbers, who cannot afford to buy a home, to search the private rented sector.
The problem was foreseeable but not judged a problem by many MPs who are private landlords.
Having a roof over our heads should be a human right, rather than an abstract aspiration.
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Hide AdThe problem requires concrete targets, resources, and a commitment to low rent local council homes.
Royston Jones
Anchorsholme
roads
Good but frustrating
Heading towards Lancaster from Morecambe, and wishing to turn left on to the Bay Gateway towards the M6 is causing acute frustration to motorists at many times of the day.
The problem is a combination of the traffic light sequence and the slip road on to the Bay Gateway at probably its busiest junction.
As soon as 10 or so vehicles are held by the red signal in the left hand Lancaster-bound lane (opposite McDonald’s), the access on to the easterly slip road is completely blocked.
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Hide AdThis is doubly irritating as the slip road traffic light is always on green at the same time as the A683 Lancaster-bound light is on red.
As soon as the Lancaster-bound traffic is given a green light, the slip road light changes to red so delays of up to five minutes can occur for vehicles heading from Morecambe to the M6.
The only alternative at present is to put two wheels on the pavement and ease past the standing traffic.
I suggest that the slip road be substantially widened and lengthened backwards towards Morecambe, thus avoiding changes to any of the traffic light sequences.
Otherwise the Bay Gateway is wonderful.
Ian R White
Bare
brexit
No more
EU rules
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Hide AdAs an MEP who has spent many an hour in the European Parliament, I find the row over the UK potentially losing the right to attend key committee meetings both amusing
and depressing in equal measure.
Amusing because our influence in EU decisions has always been minuscule anyway and depressing because it is something else that doubtless our negotiators will concede.
We voted to leave in
2016 and we should not be subject to new EU laws made during the Brexit transition period, particularly without voting rights.
The mountain of rules and regulations that manacle business in this country is one of the reasons the majority voted to regain our independence.
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Hide AdPlans by EU negotiators to generously say that some of the other 27 states could ‘invite’ Britain to observe some committee meetings without any right to influence its content just demonstrates the low regard in which we are held.
Paul Nuttall
North West MEP
UK Independence Party
education
Remedy costs too much
I am shocked to hear that Lancashire County Council has approved to pay the interim education chief £1,125 per day to address the damning SEND report on the previous Labour administration.
The pay decision cannot be right and it should be above party politics.
Yes, we must never deny special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision.We have a duty of care to all our children’s needs.
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Hide AdIf it is in a pickle, it needs sorting out but how can the Conservative Group justify the pay package?
I understand that the county council needs a capable and competent person to deliver but given that there are so many cuts on services, why the princely sum of remuneration per day? I rest my case.
Coun Liz Scott
John O’Gaunt Ward
Lancaster