Readers' letters - January 22

Fly-tipping will get worse in South Ribble
Fly-tipping will get worse says a readerFly-tipping will get worse says a reader
Fly-tipping will get worse says a reader

I seem to recall that, when the brown garden waste bins were introduced, the council said all our green waste would be composted and sold.

For more letters: https://www.lep.co.uk/news/your-say/readers-letters-january-18-1-8968669

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Possibly I dreamt that, but I do recall there was a voucher in the Post that entitled readers to claim free compost at Embleys Garden Centre.

Now I didn’t dream that!

It entitled you to two bags.

I suppose what prompts this is the front page on the explosion of fly-tipping in our area (LP January 18).

It is a huge disgrace.

So how will the £30 charge to empty the brown bin go?

I am very sad to say it will make things an awful lot worse.

I know many local people who intend to cram their garden waste in the grey bin, and others who say they will take it to the tip themselves.

How long will those good intentions last?

I haven’t used my bin for ages.

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The council doesn’t take them for the period over Christmas and, although it is emptying bins again, mine is still empty.

I have two compost bins and try to put as much in them as possible, but in summer, I have loads of privet which gets put in

the brown bin.

We all pay council tax and I feel we are paying twice.

We all put our different waste into separate bins and dutifully put them out for emptying.

I am sorry South Ribble, I reckon you have seen nothing yet on the fly-tipping front!

ALLAN FAZACKERLEY

via email

development

Gambling with our money’

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When I received an email saying, “we’ve got good news on your lottery ticket”, I was more than a little excited.

Since the price of tickets went up to £2.50, I don’t often play. However, as the euro lottery was offering a guaranteed 10 millionaires in the UK, I bought a ticket. Needless to say, it didn’t take me long to check in and see what I had won. £2.30 was the grand amount!

It’s a good job I don’t make a habit of gambling like this.

Some people of course, gamble regularly, even using other people’s money.

A good example is Chorley Council. It has done a brilliant job with organising the Santa Express and the Helter Skelter in Fazackerly Street. Moving the town’s market into the streets around the covered market has also proved to be a success.

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Against that is the development of the extension to Market Walk (pictured), a gamble using our money, which has not been thought through properly. Our council leader says the majority of traders are in agreement with it. I would like to know just who these traders are?

A recent survey, covering more than 200 town centre business owners and managers, found they were all against this development.

The preparatory works have been completed, but, due to the lack of commitment from the retail sector, caused by changes in buying patterns, the decision should now be made to place this development on hold.

Another thing which requires explanation is exactly what has been achieved with the ‘land swap’ deal concerning the Royal Oak complex?

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Does it include the Gala bingo hall, and if so, was the council aware of the lease it holds? If not, why not?

Graham Archer

Chorley

industry

Radical policies are needed

The collapse of Carillion, one of Britain’s largest engineering firms, demonstrates everything that is wrong with the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).

Despite widespread misgivings at the time, the Tories put this cunning plan into action in the 1990s and it mushroomed under New Labour.

The damage this colossal ‘rip-off’ has done is now plain for all to see – thousands of jobs lost, public services slashed to the bone and taxpayers ‘fleeced’ of billions of pounds.

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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has rightly said that this has to be a “watershed moment”.

However, this would require some radical policies such as renationalising public services, halting all sell-offs and not giving a penny to the bosses and bankers.

Unless Corbyn commits the Labour Party to implementing these measures, we are in for more of the same.

John Prance

Penwortham

society

Housing should be a basic right

Homelessness is more to do with extortionate rents that cannot be met by low wages, combined with zero-hour contracts.

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Houses have become an investment rather than a basic commodity.

Laws to control rents in relation to what the lowest paid can afford is a humanely place to start. There needs to be an end to the profit motivation in housing.

A house should be a basic right in a civilised society, not a prized possession in a profitable portfolio.

Steve Hardcastle

Address supplied