An accident waiting to happen

I AM 14 years old and a student of Armthorpe Academy.

I wrote to Caroline Flint MP many years ago, when I was about six-years-old, to complain about the big lorries going around the tight corner in front of St Lawrence’s Church in Hatfield.

Since then conditions have worsened and many more lorries are going around this corner on the wrong side of the road and the barriers on the pavement are often knocked down. It is only a matter of time before a person is hurt or killed here.

I witnessed yet another lorry struggling to fit around the corner the other morning and I have decided that this problem has been ignored for too long.

These roads were not designed for motor vehicles, they were built in a time of horse and carts.

If a vehicle cannot get around the corner and remain on the correct side of the road and not mount the pavement it should not be allowed. I am looking to find a way of banning heavy good vehicles from going around this corner.

We have a great deal of history around this corner, St Lawrence’s, our beautiful Norman church, dates back to around 1150 AD and opposite there are Grade II listed buildings, yet we allow heavy good vehicles to go past several times an hour. What damage are they doing to the foundations?

My biggest concern is the close proximity of a large primary school on two sites, hundreds of school children walk on the pavements that these lorries are often mounting. Do we have to wait until someone is killed before something is done?

My family has been in this village since at least 1550 so Hatfield is very important to me, as is the whole of Doncaster. I feel I have to do something to raise awareness of this danger before something dreadful happens but I need your help. The voice of a 14-year-old girl is not big enough.

No chance for UK workers

From: Trisha Scott, West Park Terrace, Scarborough.

WITH reference to the letter from Hilary Andrews about foreign workers (Yorkshire Post, August 25), I would like, if I may, to add a few comments of my own in reply.

She seems to think that all of the foreign workers she regards so highly are in their jobs because the British unemployed are too busy playing on their computers and generally being too idle to look for work.

While I cannot argue that a minority of the unemployed would fall into this category, and should be dealt with accordingly, things aren’t as clear cut as she makes out.

Does she know for instance, that many, if not all, shipping companies make a point of recruiting their staff through agencies abroad, one such agency being located in Mumbai? And not only shipping companies hire their staff in this way – many UK firms follow this practice, especially to recruit staff in Eastern Europe. In these cases, vacancies are very unlikely to be advertised in this country. There are some companies who, for example, insist that their staff speak Polish! Why, when the mother tongue in this country is English?

A year or two ago, our local newspaper advertised a job vacancy in Polish. Why? Surely if these people are over here looking for work, they should speak English?

Tory members losing faith

From: Colin McNamee, Ella Street, Hull.

FOLLOWING the recent widespread media coverage regarding the growing membership defections (record levels) from the Conservative Party and their MPs’ increasing disenchantment with their leadership coalition with 
the Liberal Democrats, David Cameron and George Osborne may be casting about for 
new alliance partners before 
the next General Election.

Independently, recent polling surveys from the Conservative Home website also confirm the defections above.

Let them cast elsewhere. Too many broken undertakings, failed election manifesto promises and growing distrust – and that’s just the feeling amongst the Lib Dem supporters!

Too many broken undertakings, failed election manifesto promises and growing distrust 
by the UK electorate mean 
that the Conservatives are unlikely to win sufficient 
electoral support to form a functioning majority Conservative government for decades.

Ukip is not here to provide life support to the Tories.

Mistaken identity

From: Peter Johnston, Angram Road, Long Marston, York.

SEEING your photograph of York St Mary Castlegate (Yorkshire Post, August 25) reminded me of a business meeting in that particular church in the early 1970s.

I was attending a meeting with my managing director William Anelay and Mr Horton the architect for the City of York discussing the proposals for the renovation of this fine redundant church.

We were standing in the nave amongst piles of rubble and grime with pigeons flying around and in and out of broken windows when in walked an elderley couple who commenced a circuit of the church quietly surveying the architecture.

As they were doing no harm and keeping themselves to themselves, we left them alone.

However, after a while, our meeting concluded and we wished to leave and lock up so we asked the couple if they would be so kind as to leave with us. We were somewhat astonished to recieve the reply “Why are you locking up, this is the Minster isn’t it?”

The directions to the “proper” church were politely given.