Logan's Run health service

It’s a good job The RT Non Jezza Hunt, Secretary of State and his crony Philip Dunne, Minister of state for Health MP never watched Logan’s Run or else we would be living in a dystopian ageist future society in which both population and consumption of resources are maintained in equilibrium by requiring the death of everyone reaching the age of 21,(or whatever age the government seems fit).

Well I am sorry I’ve lived for so long, paying national insurance every week. I am sorry the Government allow all these “health tourists” to get away with millions of pounds of treatment, I am sorry the Government allows people into the country and after a few week are allowed the same health benefits as the elderly.

I would make every visitor to Britain take out medical insurance, whether for a short stay or to reside over here, and passports stamped so it can be seen at a glance at customs that they are insured.

Let’s start doing what other countries do and look after No1 – Britain.

Dave M

by email

Peel should be quizzed

Concerning your two-page spread on Doncaster-Sheffield Airport.

It’s certainly convenient to have an airport in nearby Doncaster, and a boon that local people have the opportunity to work and earn there, but it’s ironic that you trumpet the local credentials of a Manchester-based company with holdings concentrated in the North West.

Peel are quite capable of promoting themselves without your paper trying to drum up business for them.

You say nothing of Peel’s role in the failure of the short-lived Sheffield City Airport and their cheap acquisition of the extremely valuable land it was on.

In a campaigning newspaper like the Star they should be questioned closely and given a fair chance to reply.

J Robin Hughes

Towngate Road, Worrall, Sheffield, S35

Ground is a let-down

Nice bold headline, The power of Hillsborough, in The Star, February 7. What a pity the ground is such a let-down. I’m sure no major refurb has been done since we went to see Wednesday play Santos in the early Seventies.

My husband went to see Wednesday play MK Dons five years ago last October and the ground hadn’t changed from the Seventies.

Chesterfield

Double whammy

Cate Dixon of Sheffield Against Fracking made a good case as to why ‘fracking will never be the answer’, stating that ‘the country does not need it’.

As the local branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), we are also clear that the countryside does not need fracking.

Communities and countryside across South Yorkshire and NE Derbyshire are now under a huge threat, with the first application for planning permission due soon near Eckington, just south of Sheffield.

Local people are rightly concerned and angry by Ineos’ proposals, no matter how hard the company has tried to gloss the facts in recent advertorials. Fracking is a double whammy for the countryside – damage now by drilling and extracting, then increased climate impacts by investing in a dirty fossil fuel when we should be reducing energy consumption and shifting to renewables.

Andy Tickle

Director, CPRE South Yorkshire

Stop the fracking

Please help the local villagers to stop Ineos fracking in our fields.

We live within a mile of the Marsh Lane site.

Ineos will drill 24 hours a day and the noise and number of lorries coming into the area will be very disturbing.

We have fantastic wildlife living in the area such as owls and buzzards and it’s not fair that a company can move in and spoil our green belt.

Ineos will pump water deep into the earth and we are so worried it will polute the nearby springs and streams that are often used as a drinking source for horses and livestock.

Please help us protect this beautiful area and keep it peaceful for all to enjoy.

Lyn Taylor

by email

More homes are needed

Having read your article on the amount of student accommodation being chucked up all over Sheffield centre, (The Star, January 30), when are we going to get homes built for the citizens of the city?

I have never seen so many soulless monstrosities erected in any other city. Why have council or housing association properties not been built on Hollis Croft, Solly Street, Garden Street, White Croft, all of which were the settling point for the many thousands of Irish who came in the 18th century, my family being one of them? “Little Ireland” it was called. My parents, who both lived there, told me it was a thriving, busy area before being demolished.

Also, what is happening to St Vincent’s Church, paid for by the Irish and Italians, all of whom came to escape poverty? It should be turned into a museum and visitor centre to keep alive the memory of the immigrants’ past who helped to build and make this great city what it is.

Let’s have more homes built for our citizens and let’s not forget “Little Ireland” and “Little Italy”, the immigrants time forgot, or so it seems.

Sheffield

Is the Queen downsizing?

Pensioners with family homes will be asked by the government to downsize to help the housing crisis. At the same time the Queen is celebrating 65 years on the throne.

Will the Queen be asked to downsize, thus freeing Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle, Balmoral and other residencies? If not the non-pensioners will be next on the list.

Eddie Peart

Broom Crescent, Rotherham, S60

£36m could go to NHS

£21m to be spent on Park Hill for an art and cultures centre? And £15m Lottery funding for community groups, which is great, but that £36m could go into the NHS to help the shocking state that our hospitals have got into.

Sarah Robinson