Readers' letters - January 3

The Peers have been living it up at taxpayers’ expense this Christmas.

The Lords’ 2016 winter bar bill comes in at £70,000 – all paid for by us.

Unelected peers spent an incredible £1m across a number of bars in the archaic institution.

The public will be shocked that unelected peers pick up £300 a day, then get merry at our expense.

Or are we no longer shocked anymore?

Surely this useless institution should go for good.

They also use our money for luxury food in the Peers’ dining room, where they can eat pressed game terrine with baby leek and dandelion salad and slow cooked ox cheek with Irish champ mash, heritage carrot and salsa verde.

One life peer described the chamber as the best day care centre for the elderly in London.

The whole lot is disgraceful when millions are using food banks and poverty is on the rise.

We must all be questioning why it is that this bunch of ‘unelected scroungers’, who get paid too much in the first place for just attending Parliament, can claim £1m of taxpayers’ money to spend on booze?

This apparent corruption at the top of the establishment never ceases to amaze.

Royston Jones

via email

traffic

Why do drivers flout the rules?

This is not a joke!

Question: “When is a crossing not a crossing?”

Probably the same as “When is a box junction not a box junction?” Answer: When it’s on the Ringway in Preston, of course!

Why is it that the two crossings on the Ringway (at Friargate) seem to be a ‘free-for-all’ as far as most of the traffic is concerned?

I understood a crossing to be a way for pedestrians to safely cross a busy road, not where vehicles park in slow moving traffic. I also understood that a box junction should not be entered unless the road ahead was clear and the traffic moving.

Maybe I’ve misunderstood the Highway Code – but then I am not a driver, I am a pedestrian.

In recent months, a lot of vehicles have seen fit to park on the crossing and the box junction because of congested traffic, blocking the path of anyone crossing the road.

This has applied to cars, vans, trucks and any other vehicles who obviously don’t give a hoot for the law or any consideration for those on foot.

In fact, when I see a car behind the white line, patiently waiting its turn, I feel like running up to it and thanking the driver for their courtesy.

Why these two crossings appear to be above the law as far as traffic rules apply escapes me. But then it probably escapes the selfish drivers who flout the law too.

How thoughtless these drivers are because, in most cases, there is barely any room to get past, let alone room for pushchairs, wheelchairs or mobility vehicles. Vehicles just seem to follow the one in front, oblivious of road signs.

If only those who decide to park on the crossing, which is extremely dangerous for anyone crossing on ‘the green man’, were given a fine and a re-test before being allowed to drive on the road again, maybe they would think twice and they would realise that inconsideration and rudeness does not get you to where you are going any quicker. Someone in authority should look at this situation before someone is injured – because this looks like an accident waiting to happen.

Preston Pedestrian

Name and Address Supplied

nostalgia

Tribute to John

I was sorry to learn that John Nickson – Mr Hospice – had recently passed away. John, pictured, did so much for St Catherine’s Hospice and will be sorely missed. I went to Preston Catholic College with John and, as a way of tribute, have sent in this photo of John in the Under-16 Eleven team in 1963/1964 (see Looking Back). John is on the back row on the left and was our goalkeeper.

The story goes that, in our year, we didn’t have a goalkeeper, so, true to form, John (5’6”), volunteered, and was given the green jersey. That was just so typical of John.

Dennis Higgins

via email

environment

Take toys to charity shop

To the young parent who flung three bags of still usable little girls’ clothes, toys and books over the fence on Seymour Road – their contents were spilt down the banking into the brook – are you aware that charity shops will take in these things and use them to help people less fortunate than you? They appreciate these things.

Those of us who live along the brook definitely do not.

Would you like the end of your street to be turned into a tip?

A Deane

Ashton

Does Nick Clegg deserve a knighthood? See what a previous correspondent says at:

https://www.lep.co.uk/news/readers-lessons-january-1-1-8940388