Readers' letters - March 22

Well, well, well, I see our wonderful Labour-controlled council intends to charge me 
£30 a year to empty my green waste.

This, after I pay a ridiculous council tax.

It’s par for the course for this Labour council, and anyone who votes for this left-wing shower in May’s elections want their heads examined.

What do we pay our council tax for?

Doesn’t the government encourage us to recycle?

Don’t forget that the green waste that the council collects is later composted and sold!

Sometimes back to the very council taxpayer who has paid his £30 to have it collected!

Also, it’s £30 this year, what about next year and subsequent years?

As usual, it’s a political point scoring exercise to blame the Tory’s austerity measures.

Yes, the Tory cuts are savage, but I’m sure cuts could have been made elsewhere, for instance, councillors’ wages and expenses.

Years ago, a councillor did the job as a civic duty with pride and free of charge, with just expenses.

Now, they not only have a salary, whatever it is, but also a pension!

I have spoken to quite a lot of us who have garden houses and all of us have no intention of paying this stupid charge.

I’ll dispose of my waste by other means.

This will be counter­productive to the council in fly­tipping clearance.

I am a non-driver, so I will not be able to take my hedge cuttings, green waste, and so on, to one of the recycling centres – that is if the charge isn’t also extended to include the recycling centres, for anyone fortunate enough to be able to take their green waste to them.

What a rip off!

Disgusted Pensioner

Preston

We are losing nearly £22bn

On Budget day, Sky News quietly posted an exclusive analysis of figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

Its findings show the taxpayer is set to lose nearly £22bn from George Osborne’s planned sale of our shares in the RBS bank.

What could we buy?

If Osborne didn’t keep mishandling the nation’s finances, our public institutions would be looking a whole lot better.

The £22bn we are set to lose from RBS shares could pay for either:

n 103,000 nurses for 10 years (an annual starting wage of £21,388);

n 5,946 primary schools (an average cost of £3,700,000 each);

n 147,000 affordable homes (an average cost of £150,000 each;)

n 40 state-of-the-art hospitals (based on the £545,000,000 cost of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham).

But no, the opportunity will be squandered, while we are enduring an unprecedented housing crisis and an NHS buckling under austerity.

An ordinary person would be sacked.

John Horrocks via email

Make June 24 ‘liberation day’

What a sad sight the Prime Minister looked, trying to sell a very poor deal.

It has dawned on him that he is not going to ride the European gravy train like the Blairs and Kinnocks, and many thousands of other ‘fat cats’.

Multi­nationals and big companies are also all of a panic – they see an end to cheap labour that has kept wages low for years.

Let us leave the sinking EU ship and go on to prosper in the wider world.

On June 23, vote OUT and let’s make June 24 a public holiday, to be called forever more, ‘liberation day.’

Long live free Britain.

P Ward

Leyland

Memories of Church Street

In answer to John Darlington (LEP Letters, March 3), I too have many happy memories of Church Street as I worked for many years at number 47, JL Driscoll Fruitier and Florist, after leaving school at 15.

I do recall your mother (or possibly your grandmother).

I remember a Miss Darlington and recall a few of the staff.

I remember Mark Williams’ Butchers opposite your shop, Claude Deakin and Edna Deakin next door to Driscoll’s.

I can recall many shops and also many characters who frequented Church Street during the 40s and 50s.

It was a joy to go to work.

I walked down Church Street from Lancaster Road each day and passed Gooby’s gown shop, Empire and Palladium cinemas and, yes, Marshall’s haberdashery, which is still trading as I recently purchased something from it.

Yes, I was happy working in Church Street, but what an eyesore now!

Keep your memories!

I have had mine for over 80 years and more.

John C

Fulwood

What will we have instead?

I hope the bus company is going to let the public know what buses are replacing the Orbit.

For the people on Watling Street Road, from The Sumners to the sheltered housing scheme, the only bus that covers this area is the Orbit.

As most of the people are elderly and don’t drive, they rely on the bus for Asda, the hospital and even the city centre.

I think they should publish details as it is very worrying.

D A Hunter

Preston

Face to face is much better

I would like to make a comment about how everything has to be done online.

I am 80 years old and my daughter spent three hours on her computer to renew my Blue Badge, which I would never have been able to do without a computer. Please bring places back where we can speak to people face to face like we used to.

Mrs M Downs, Preston