Korean Veterans

Should anyone have second thoughts after reading my explanation please contact myself, with full name and address, telephone if possible, or an email address, which branch of the armed Forces, served with, time spent in Korea, or Korean Waters my contact details below.

Ken Keld

2 Penton Rd, Cayton, Scarborough, YO11 3 TQ. Tel 01723 585912. E:Mail [email protected]

Did you vote for austerity?

I am sure most of us are aware of the problems in the NHS, much of it caused by lack of money.

So, isn’t it great to know that our Embassy in Beijing is inviting groups to apply for cash from a £1.3 billion fund, “To improve care in the community for elderly people in China”.

Let’s be honest, it’s not just the NHS that is cash strapped. Most of us see daily the result of cutbacks by our local Councils because of the removal of funding from Central Government. Council tax in Sheffield is to rise by 5%, of which 3% will go directly to funding community care.

So, if you are working and paying into the NHS, you are now having to pay even more through local taxes.

Perhaps when we get to 60, we should all move to China and dip into the £1.3bn fund?

As well as raising council tax, Sheffield, like many other councils, look like having to shed around another 250 jobs. How does putting working people who pay taxes, onto benefits, help the economy?

Why, if the economy is doing so well, which is what we keep being told, do we need to keep cutting back at this level?

Just curious, but how many of you out there actually voted at the last general election for austerity that sees our streets full of litter, reduced household waste collections, job losses, roads crumbling, increases in Council tax, patients laying on trollies in corridors, people sleeping on the streets, but billions of pounds being sent to places like China, who are so hard up they are paying footballers nearly a million pounds a week?

To those who actually voted to support austerity, may I say a big thank you on behalf of all the people who are suffering as a result.

Steve Collins

by email

I applaud the city council

I regularly read in your letters columns much criticism of Amey and our council... especially with regard to the wretched matter of “street trees”.

To read some of these letters one could be excused for thinking that Amey, aided and abetted by our council, were nothing more than arboreal vandals determined to desertify our city and increase pollution levels.

I suspect that this is as far from the truth as is the belief that we are, somehow, entirely reliant on mature trees for the very oxygen we breathe.

Perhaps we might be a little more positive and look at a few of the recent improvements.

With the signing of the PFI in my area, I have seen:-

1) Our badly pot-holed roads being resurfaced. No longer do I drive on third world roads.

2) Our footpaths have been resurfaced and improvements made for wheelchair/pram users.

3) Our grass verges have been regularly cut and litter removed.

4) Overgrown roadside trees which were obstructing vision have been pruned and some removed.

5) Trees which were obstructing street lights have been trimmed and pruned.

6) There have been plantings of new trees.

7) Our street lights have all been replaced by vastly superior and more efficient lighting.

I know there are parts of our city still awaiting their turn for these works to be done, but isn’t it about time we started to applaud our council for some of the improvements we are seeing?

It shouldn’t be forgotten the Lib Dems were as instrumental as Labour for obtaining this PFI and all large schemes will have their detractors and critics... but some of the recent criticism is grossly unfair.

I applaud the council for getting on with the job in hand and I hope all of those, who by their protesting are likely to be costing the city financial penalties, will think again.

D Dalton

S20

We need a better service

Leaving work at 2pm on Wednesday, February 8, 2017, I went for the 86 bus at Angel Street which should be at 14.14, no bus, this is supposedly a service that runs every 30 mins the next bus arrived at 14.50.

Waiting at the cold draughty bus stop for 44 min I was frozen as were other ladies waiting with me, elderly ladies standing out in the cold for 44 mins.

Seated on the bus I phoned to complain to the bus company and was told by a very nice young man, (thank you for your service), that the bus broke down a few moments before it was due to start its route, he appologised.

When I asked could they not have put another bus on the route, knowing it was broken down, I was told they had no other bus to use, so they have no replacements for such events happening, and could not take one off a route that ran a 10 min service as it was too late.

This meant that the bus was missing for the rest of the day!

So every one in four was missing.

This route 86, is a lottery, will a bus arrive, or will I wait for another hour to see if the next one scheduled will miss as well.

Try getting another bus you may say! Good idea,

BUT the 85 bus and the 86 bus both run within two minutes of each other both going up Fox hill Road/ Wilcox Road.

At this time of day you are lucky to get on the bus as it is full and I often have to stand up.

An appology is not good enough when you are stood for 44 mins in the cold, this can cause hyperthermia to older people left waiting in the cold.

We need a better service and replacemnet buses.

CB, cold and angry

Fox Hill

Mother Theresa won

It’s reported Tony Blair is returning to politics with a £10 million war chest.

Is he not aware the Tories had a leadership candidate vote and Mother Theresa won?

S Ellis

Cottenham Road, S65