KFC taken away

I don’t mind a meal from there once in while but if the news is to be believed people are phoning the police to ask when they will be able to get their hands on some of the finger-licking chicken.

Really, are some people so sad they have to ring up the police and make a nuisance of themselves asking a daft question because they have had to go without their takeaway?

One word, fools.

Jayne Grayson

by email

Bus gate appeal

I am waiting to hear the outcome of an appeal against a so-called bus gate penalty.

On Saturday, January 27 at around 5.15pm I was coming away from the Cup tie at Bramall Lane, my usual route used for many years successfully has been past Highfield library and down London Road towards the bus gate before you get to Queens Road.

Every match I turn left down Asline Road back towards town and head for Queens Road to head towards Gleadless.

On this day there were two large metal barriers at the end of Asline Road forcing all traffic to go through the bus lane.

There was queuing traffic on my side and traffic coming the other way so it would have been impossible for both football traffic and Saturday shoppers to turn round and go back.

I asked a policeman at the next game and he said he would not have gone through the barriers because they may have been put there to stop people driving into an incident.

I will let you know the outcome.

The barriers looked too well positioned to be dumped by anybody and are heavy like those used in crowd control.

Trevor Bishop

by email

Walk-in services

The NHS in Sheffield spent just 0.03 per cent of its annual expenditure in 2016/17 on translation services, out of a total budget for Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust of just over £1 billion.

That’s why I was disappointed to read the sensational reporting of the issue in the Star on Monday, February 19.

The media have a responsibility to set such figures in a wider context and it was disappointing to see the Star miss this opportunity on Monday.

Predictably this story, published without any wider context, led to a deluge of unpleasant and often racist comments on social media.

Readers could easily have been left confused that this drop-in-the-ocean spending for our local NHS was leading to the closure of the Broad Lane Walk In Service and Minor Injuries Unit at the Hallamshire, both of which Labour councillors and MPs have been campaigning to keep open.

The reality is that these closures are a direct consequence of central government cuts to our beloved NHS, which is an ideologically- driven attack on our public services.

Translation services are vital in emergency medicine and serve to benefit the whole community.

It’s time that we invest in the NHS and stop cutting funding for some of the most vulnerable in our communities to learn English.

Councillor Ben Miskell

Park and Arbourthorne Ward Sheffield City Council

What is it about pigeons

You look at the pollution from vehicle exhausts which affects people, especially in city centres, but what is it about pigeons?

Most of them live permanently in city centres and are exposed to all the pollutants that society can throw at them, but they carry on regardless eating and drinking, kids chasing them, while happily chirping away.

EB Warris

by email

The tanks have arrived

In 2015 Ashley Highfield, chief executive of Johnston Press, claimed he was depressed at the thought of the BBC intending to ‘park a tank on every local lawn offering its version of hyper local news’.

Well, the tanks have arrived in the form of 150 BBC-funded journalists assigned to vlocal newspapers across the UK, (including The Star).

The cost? £8 million annually to 2026!

As part of the agreement, both sides will have access to a ‘shared data unit’ based in Birmingham.

What, exactly, is the full purpose of this venture and why should public money fund it?

Maybe, however, we should be concerned about BBC involvement at a time when disgruntled ‘remainers’ are pushing ever harder for a second EU referendum.

After all, a report entitled ‘Brussels Broadcasting Corporation’, monitoring thousands of hours of radio and TV shows dating back to 1999, revealed ‘overwhelming bias’ surrounding BBC coverage of the EU.

In fact, it found that of 4,275 guests discussing the EU on the Today programme during 2005/2015, only 132 were brexiteers.

Furthermore, in 2015, MPs on the European Scrutiny Committee expressed ‘deep concerns’ about the biased nature of BBC coverage of the EU.

Worryingly, the Spectator 28.2.2014 reported that only a Freedom of Information request had revealed that BBC staff applied for and accepted £3 million of EU funding.

Even more worrying is the knowledge that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’!

This being the case, I wonder

In return for providing local newspapers with reporters at the licence fee payers expense, will the BBC seek to influence local content in the event of a second EU referendum?

Furthermore, would this be fair to the millions of licence fee payers wishing to leave the EU?

Mary Steele

Deerlands Avenue, Parson Cross, Sheffield, S5

Footnote: The purpose of the local democracy scheme is to extend coverage of local councils and to fulfil a perceived deficit in the way councils are being covered in some areas – which has been identified as a concern by the Government.