Readers' letters - January 18

Just seven weeks ago, whilst out for a walk with my guide dog, I came upon a van parked on the pavement, leaving me just enough room to squeeze past.

Unfortunately, there are metal signs fitted to the lamp posts in the village warning dog owners that, if their dog does a mess on the pavement, they must pick it up or be fined.

This sign is at face height.

I hit it and sustained a cut to my forehead almost two inches long and it was down to the bone!

I went immediately to the health centre but they couldn’t help and sent me to the hospital where the cut was glued together.

It has left quite a scar.

The shock was so severe that I have had to give up my guide dog after 31 years of working with one.

I have no confidence at all now.

It was not the dog’s fault, it was the van.

Had it not been on the pavement, I would not have had the accident.

I will always be very bitter about this.

It was totally unnecessary, the street is a very quiet one at all

times.

Name supplied

via email

For more letters: https://www.lep.co.uk/news/your-say/readers-letters-january-16-1-8968576

transport

Benefits of electric buses

Well done to the Grim Tsar of Grimsargh, Martin Sutcliffe, for writing in support of trams (LP Letters, January 16).

He describes me as inviting the casual reader but it would be good to hear from experts too.

However, I repeat that all the benefits that Martin Sutcliffe identified can be achieved by electric buses.

Any disused railway route could be paved for buses instead of re-laying tracks.

Bus lanes can be given right-of-way, the same as tram lines.

Tram lines are by no means traffic free.

They get blocked by thoughtless or selfish parking, breakdowns or accidents.

An advantage of the bus is that it can simply drive around them.

Preston is right to be proud to have been the home of the tramcar in the old days when that was state-of-the-art.

Let’s be proud again by becoming the home of electric buses at the forefront of today’s technology and export them all over the world.

Stephen Palmer

Penwortham

industry

Top wages

I don’t suppose anything will ever change in our ridiculous corrupt society.

We, as a nation, let Sir Philip Green get away with ripping the heart out of British Home Stores, we let train fares go up and up while the privatised bosses rake in huge salaries, and now, as though the Government never even noticed, we have Carillion!

Just look at the top wages and bonuses being paid, even though they surely knew the size of the hole they had dug!

So more jobs, pensions and innocent small sub-contract firms are threatened.

As the man said, in the real world, the workers look after the work, and ‘the managers look after themselves’.

ALLAN FAZACKERLEY

via email

politics

Leaders should be examples

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 by most politicians, 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. The world in general should look for solutions to problems. Leaders should lead from the front and provide the best examples. I am not certain this is so common now.

Dennis Fitzgerald

via email

nhs

Turn building into hospital

Re: Preston Super Surgery (LP, January 13). This sounds like a good idea,but a much better idea would have been to convert the whole building (pictured) into a continuation hospital, which would relieve bed blocking in the Royal Preston Hospital by patients, who still require treatment until they are able to go home.

I still can’t understand why these places were closed in the first place. They were necessary. Now the hospitals are suffering terribly from a lack of beds available for seriously ill patients.

Janette Ellwood

via email