Damage at the Chelfonts

When we got there we were greeted by a very distressed pair of hoteliers. They’d had some guests who were, if I put it politely, lubricated nearly all weekend and left on the Sunday at around 9am, making out they were going for a fag, but someone came to pick them up sharpish and drove off.

They had paid their bill on arrival so it wasn’t as they call it a ‘moonlight’, but the damage they had done to the room was absolutely disgusting. It took six hours to clean, they had even ripped the toilet seat off.

You might be wondering what it has to do with me.

Well, you see, we assisted to clean the room because it was the one we were staying in and when I asked where these people were from, I was gob-smacked when I was told Woodhouse, S13!

So if you read this, please send the money for the damages because we go again in a few weeks and I told them I thought you would do the right thing.

LD Lewis

S13

Air pollution kills people

While the chimney sculptures may be attractive and remind us of our industrial past, they will also represent the modern-day air pollution that makes Tinsley an unhealthy place to live because it’s next to the M1. That’s only going to get worse for local people as development is increasingly focused in the east end, drawing in more road traffic.

The council’s decision to approve the Meadowhall Leisure Extension relies on two key actions to mitigate air pollution.

Firstly, the council’s out-of-date Air Quality Action Plan with objectives to be achieved by 2015. It has failed to meet the key objective of reducing 500 premature deaths each year in the city. Secondly, improvements in vehicle technology to reduce emissions by 2021.

Neither offers any robust, proven action that will address the air pollution and the linked serious health issues that blight the Tinsley area.

This decision sidelines the Sheffield Council’s current Public Health Strategy which says “We will adopt a principle of health in all policies and systematically consider health and wellbeing outcomes, and inequalities across all of the decisions.”

Air pollution and public health cannot be swept under the carpet.

People who live in Tinsley cannot be sacrificed for east end development.

Meadowhall will contribute £250,000 to the chimneys artwork as part of this decision.

That amount of money and more really needs to be spent on public health in Tinsley.

No community in Sheffield is more vulnerable and air pollution kills people.

Eamonn Ward

Sheffield Green Party

An abiding memory

Catching up on recent copies of The Star I was intrigued by a letter, (September 14, 2017), from Freda France regarding her deceased uncle John Hibberd, entitled ‘With tears in my eyes’.

Throughout my childhood, my closest friend was Jean Hibberd who lived a few doors away on Fulmere Road, Parson Cross with her mum Doris, grandfather and grandmother Mr and Mrs Lindley and their son, Eric. Her older sister, Valerie, was a very close friend of my sister, Betty.

An abiding memory from all those years ago is of a large, framed sepia photograph of a deceased, handsome young man in uniform taking pride of place above the mantelpiece in the living room.

Despite knowing the family for many years, I never heard his name spoken and assumed his wartime demise was too painful for them to put into words.

Even as a very young child I felt the photograph had been specially placed in order for the young man to share, in death, their daily lives and to keep him close.

If my memory serves me well, I seem to remember accompanying Jean to her Aunty Freda’s house on Southey Green on more than one occasion.

I wonder? Could there be a link?

Whether or not similarities are purely coincidental the poignant reminder of a young man’s lost life prompts anger at the way the descendents of thousands of many such (extra)-ordinary men and women are treated today.

Subsequent generations strived to rebuild the country and the economy, many weakened by the experience or succumbing to fatal or life-changing works’ accident before retirement.

Unfortunately, many communities from which they came are now mired in struggle to a point at which some people are sleeping on the streets, dependent on charity, food banks and debt in order to survive a proud ancestry of toil and sacrifice long forgotten.

Gains made by decades of protest gradually being stripped away.

I wonder, is this the kind of society for which our forebears strived and died?

Mary Steele

Deerlands Avenue, Parson Cross, Sheffield 5

Missing children

In reply to BT’s letter, September 18, (Missing children), everyone is entitled to their opinion, but to express it in such a heartless way is just horrible.

I’m sure Ben and Maddie’s parents are only too well aware of people’s thoughts. But they will have to live with what happened for the rest of their lives and I don’t think it was a case of them not looking after them. Most parents have turned their backs on the children at some point. It is the people who took those kids away from the parents who are to blame.

S Hughes

Arbourthorne, Sheffield

Keep up the good work

To all you Wednesdayites out there who call us a ‘pub team’, well we beat all your ‘Aces’ hands down.

Well done Chris and all the lads for a brilliant display of team work. A well-deserved win and a five point lead now and bragging rights, what could be better?

Thought we couldn’t survive in the Championship! Keep up the good work lads.

Chesterfield

The Wicker Arches

It beats me why the Wicker Arches are still standing, after all it’s yonks ago since trains used it.

So why not demolish it and open up the roads and footpaths instead of a dark and dingy past its sell by date archway, then follow that up by reducing the old Town Hall to rubble, the area would look better for it, we have enough relics in Sheffield, a modern city is what is needed.

EB Warris

by email