Whitworth in charge

For my money he has summed up the whole long-running tree-felling situation in just a handful of words.

The madness of the council and Amey – a private company – having police protection from those dangerous pensioners is not just ridiculous but is a serious social issue.

What are our council thinking?

Sometimes I think we should put Whitworth in charge!

T Chaplin

Crookes

Even-handed reporting?

When I looked at The Star report on tree felling, (Friday March 9), at first glance I may have been forgiven for thinking that the fact that the police wore their riot helmets was an intimidatory overreaction against the people that they were arresting.

This, of course, was far from the truth as they were wearing them, (as the article later points out), in order to protect themselves when clambering under a piece of machinery in order to make an arrest.

While it was no doubt factual, the article headline could just as well have said that the police were wearing high-viz jackets or black service boots.

I might even suggest that the headline could have been “Police arrest protester wearing a blue top and grey socks”.

The headline appeared to be designed to paint the police in a bad light, trying to show them acting in a heavy-handed manner.

Why was the headline couched in these terms?

We should expect this newspaper not to treat us as fools. So much for “even-handed reporting”.

Mike Wilson

High Green

Shoe repairs very cheap

I am replying to the recent letter from a dissatisfied customer of a High Street shoe repair outlet.

I know there’s only one shoe repair shop on High Street and I don’t believe what the complainer wrote.

I buy all my shoes from this shop and any repairs to my shoes I automatically take them here too,.

Four nails holding a heel, no, £17 charge no, and to think you can buy a decent pair of shoes by adding a few more pounds is ridiculous. The writer must always buy cheap shoes.

I recently had new heels plus steel tips put on my dealer boots.

The repair cost me £12 and will last me at least three years, so the charge is very cheap.

Vin Malone

by email

Online buying

I was shocked to see that John Lewis sales are struggling, mainly due to online buying, so I can’t see the likes of Atkinsons Sheffield surviving as they actively discourage online sales.

I have tried to find an item on their website then, having failed, I have contacted them to ask why and I was told it’s because they want us to go into the store. Tthey are so behind the times it’s a wonder they have not gone bust already.

Mrs C Beck

Fullwood Road, S10

Tedious and predictable

Am I alone in finding Whitworth’s constant sniping at the council, and particularly his obsession with trees, tedious and predictable, and therefore not funny?

Richard Holmes

by email

Rubbish and recycling

It doesn’t matter how many bins are provided, some people will never use them.

I live in a flat, we have shared bins, black and blue, all next to each other, yet some residents still don’t recycle. There are some who put everything in one bag, which goes in the black bin, others recycle some items, but not others.

Two sayings come to mind, “you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” and “you can’t educate pork”. The “pork” one was often quoted by two ex-colleagues from Rotherham, but I have never heard it in Sheffield.

by email

What a mess

I am writing to voice my concerns about the amount of graffiti we have got around the city. I don’t think the culprits realise just how unsightly their graffiti looks. And how they are making our city look a mess to anyone coming to visit.

Jane Coulston

by email

Tit-for-tat response

Whilst Mrs May’s actions against Russia will have the commendable result of reducing our expenditure on profligate diplomatic missions in the light of the expected tit-for-tat response to her expulsion of Russian diplomats, I fear that she really has underplayed her hand.

Whereas immediate nationalisation without compensation of all Russian-owned property in the UK might lead to a temporary downwards blip in the London property market, selling these assets off by auction could largely finance the costs of Brexit and would allow UK citizens to pick them up at a substantial discount and prices would soon rise again even without further government subsidy of the rental market by increased Housing Benefit.

John Eoin Douglas

by email

Knighthood, for what?

Useless Lib-Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, along with Sir Clegg, thought by agreeing to austerity cuts when in the Tory coalition government with ‘Posh’ Dave, it would do us all a world of good. Now he comes out with the statement that Brexit was “driven by nostalgia” for a world where faces were white.

Isn’t that being racist?

If the majority vote had been to remain would things have been different? Maybe he can inform us all how many EU countries are run by faces that are black or even brown? The stupid man! And we bestow knighthoods on such wasters, for what?

Terry Palmer

South Lea Avenue, Hoyland, Barnsley, S74