Letter: Modern cars tend to use less fuel than predecessors

Tinsley Rolling Mills on the South Yorkshire Navigation Canal at Wharf Road in Sheffield

Well, as things stand, you can’t have both.

There are some areas of the city that are fairly well served by buses.

However, there are a great many more that are not, so trying to get around is not practical for a lot of people.

He talks about a time 20 years ago, as though this was pre-pollution.

I don’t know if Charles Smith drives a car, but for his information, modern cars tend to use less fuel than their predecessors.

Added to that, petrol used to contain lead, which was said to be harmful, so there was a great push to introduce unleaded petrol.

Road diesel has also benefited from changes to make it a cleaner fuel.

Going back further, the air in, and around Sheffield, was more heavily polluted, prior to the city converting to the use of smokeless fuels, and when there was more heavy industry.

The talk of walking, instead of nipping to the shops in the car, is again, not practical in many cases.

In my younger days, shopping on foot was a regular task for me.

There was a range of shops in walking distance, that supplied most of the needs for our family of seven.

If we needed to go into town for anything, there was a regular bus service, at a reasonable cost.

Not any more!

The majority of local shops have long since gone, and the bus service is a joke.

Charles Smith concludes his column, by saying that health, mental and physical, is so important, it trumps everything else.

If that is the case, why is the mental health of the people affected by the various schemes put forward, not considered?

Does he think the 14,000 drivers fined for entering the Clean Air Zone during the first three months, are happy about it?

Does he think the businesses affected are happy?

The obvious answer to that is NO, so where is the mental health consideration?

Around 1,000 people a year in Sheffield are suffering an early death, due to mental health worries, brought on by the ill thought out schemes of the council, and the apparent condoning of such, by people like Charles Smith, and the Green party.

(I have of course made that figure up, just like those people claiming that air pollution contributes to 500 deaths a year in Sheffield.)