Readers' letters - May 16

As a regular user of Moor Park, I have watched with dread the ways in which the grant money has been spent.

First and foremost, the concrete graffiti and vandal enticing pavilion commanding centre stage should have been demolished.

Perhaps school buildings and their car parks could have been utilised or even the ugly school annex, alongside the tennis courts, which has laid empty for years.

I have never known a park anywhere that actually has a car park in its centre, encouraging vehicles in what should be a safe area for its users anytime, anywhere.

Next the duck pond should have been cleared of rats by now.

Haslam Park has no issues and if dredging it is the answer so be it.

There has been a dead tree overhanging the pond for years.

Why?

Avenham Park has fish, Haslam has ducks, why not Moor Park?

Many completely healthy native trees have been felled needlessly and now we see saplings, some looking like spruce trees, planted out.

Were the healthy ones not in the right place?

More trees not less is the usual rule for a more healthy environment.

Stop tickling around with flower beds and do something that changes it into a lovely car-free, green space without rats that are all over the park, not just the duck pond.

A disillusioned and disappointed Moor Park user

transport

I’ve penned

my thoughts

‘Take a look at bus station’s revamp’ the LP headline said (LP May 9), so I did and wished I hadn’t.

The fact I visited it twice on the same day must make me look as though I am a glutton for punishment, but I left knowing just how a farm animal feels when going to auction: penned in. So I’ve penned my thoughts!

Some misguided historical lot decided to press for a Grade II Listed status on this, to them, iconic building with no thought as to the users of such a facility.

As a result, a council spokesman has had to explain the quirkiness of the system employed in the numbering of the stands.

Yes, I did check it was not April 1.

On arrival at our new stand, one is met by a concrete block and, alongside our adjacent stand, sticking out from its block is perhaps a metal gate on the end, on which, is a vertical red brush.

I can only imagine that this is to warn the driver that he/she may be too close, as it makes that scrape down the side of the bus much like someone scraping their nails over a blackboard.

One is then herded between barriers towards our, thankfully, automatically opening doors.

Such is the likeness to animals being herded off the truck, that I was fully expecting my ears to be tagged upon entry onto the concourse and then await for someone to bid for me, thence to be herded back out on to another truck, sorry, I mean bus.

I thus ventured on to catch my next truck, sorry, bus on the west side of the bus station and was later discharged back on to the same side, from which I made my way again to the revamped part of the livestock auction house, sorry, bus station.

It was here the temporary A boards showed me at which stand I should be to catch my truck, sorry again, bus home.

I thus had time to see what other refurbishments had taken place and spotted there were no seats at all at the stands. Brilliant! So these historians want to ignore the Disability Discrimination Act in order to preserve the character of the building?

Bet they didn’t reckon on the architects going one stage further and turn it into a livestock auction facility and providing no sit down facilities for its less firm livestock, sorry, passengers.

I speculated what would happen should the automatically opening doors didn’t open. One would really be penned in on all four sides.

Now, trying to leap the concrete or metal barriers would prove to be an ordeal.

Then again that, er, ‘brushed’ metal ‘gate’ could just be the escape route from this now penned-in area and, if so, no doubt the police would be called to round us all up using their cattle prods, sorry, tasers to get us back into line.

However, all was not done. Suddenly a bus swung into stand 33 (I was at stand 35).

Seeing it was the #68 service to Blackpool, I then looked across to stand 31, which was designated for Blackpool services.

I now envisaged the livestock, sorry, passengers either leaping over the barriers to get to the bus or witness them going past the end of the bus to then return via the door and pens to board the bus.

The driver had other ideas as he announced, “number two to Tarleton!” and, as if by magic, the bus’s destination board was indeed showing “2 Tarleton”.

Thus it was I and my fellow passengers who had to either leap over the barriers or shuffle around to Stand 33, with inspectors on hand to ‘guide’ us there should we need a, er, prod.

Now I’ve go to do this twice a week. I better get some practice in at the local livestock auction.

There, I’ve, er, penned my thoughts.

Neil Swindlehurst

Walmer Bridge

politics

Voters don’t have final say

Right-winger President Trump is having great difficulty getting his policies into law. If our left-winger Jeremy Corbyn was Prime Minister, he would have even greater difficulty getting his policies into law.

When it comes to the crunch, there are more powerful forces in democracies than the voters.

I sometimes think every letter I have had published has had more influence than any vote I have cast.

That said, carry on voting, I do!

Max Nottingham

Address supplied

education

Executive heads and schools

It appears that many state secondary schools now employ not only a principal, but also what they refer to as an executive principal. It is therefore hardly surprising that some schools are experiencing financial difficulties.

Ian Robertson

via email

nostalgia

Dunn sold hats not tobacco

Re: Looking Back (LP May 3). Dunn’s shop (pictured above left, courtesy of PDA) was a gents’ hat shop, not a tobacconist. I was in many times with my dad. You can see the hats in the window of the shop.

Anon