Don't lose faith in the health service

SIR - May I congratulate John Greenwood who in his letter "Our super NHS" (T&A, March 16) uses the word "currently" in the context of free at the moment.

How about if the free NHS became 'all users to pay for all services?' This could happen if we do not look after our health service and stop running it down.

Have trust in Trust hospitals, staff, medical and otherwise who are all working to help us back to good health, and under difficult conditions, with shortage of funding, staff, etc and most of all patients who after treatment and hospitalisation leave hospital and run everything down about our hospitals.

Having worked in the NHS from the 1960s, I am writing with first-hand knowledge of the service.

Might I add a thank you, Mr Editor for allowing us all to express our feelings in our wonderful T&A.

Frank Stead, Dorchester Crescent, Shipley.

Give us respect

SIR - Our new council tax bills include some very spurious figures. The accompanying booklet claims an overall increase of 4.1 per cent over last year.

In the Community Pride publication Margaret Eaton boasts only a 3.97 per cent increase, but on reading on you find that she has excluded the fire and police elements as if they are not part of our bill at all!

Coming back to the bill itself, I find that the figures have been massaged. My bill arrives at its percentage increase by averaging the increases on four items. One of these shows an increase of 0.0 per cent on something we have never paid previously! This of course adds an element which will bring the average down. Why not invent a few more and get the averaged increase down to say two per cent or even less?

The only way to work out the actual percentage increase is to subtract last year's bill from this year's bill and divide the answer into last year's figure. In my case this comes out at 4.74 per cent, nearly two-thirds of one per cent more than the bill boasts and about four-fifths of one per cent more than Margaret Eaton's figure.

Although these figures appear at first glance to be small, when multiplied by the number of households in the Bradford area they represent a huge amount of money.

Shouldn't the taxpayers be treated with more respect?

Harry Harrison, Canford Drive, Allerton.

What a competitor

SIR - I was very pleased to read that Gordon 'Tiny' Thomas has been honoured to meet the Queen.

Before the war I was secretary of the Bradford Victoria Cycling Club. One weekend we went on a midnight ride to Donington Park to watch a race.

Tiny rode down the same night and won the race next morning.

I'm afraid my minor cycling days ended when I was wounded at Monte Cassino in Italy, but I always read any cycling news in the T&A.

I would like to thank the T&A for all the publicity you give to local sport and school sport.

G Hudson (ex-secretary Bradford PA Supporters Club), Nursery Place, Bradford 5.

Just try again

SIR - N Brown's March 4 reply to my earlier letter is confusing, and misleading.

Our council tax is set by Bradford's Conservative council, and I agree with him, it has got out of control, that is why the Government has said "enough" and has capped every council at five per cent.

This year it will go up by 4.2 per cent, making it the lowest increase ever.

About Mr Brown's pension, if what he writes is correct, that he's received £93.82 and has no other source of income, he should receive pension credit, even if he has a nest egg.

My situation was very similar, and I had no problem. He should certainly try again.

Geoff Tasker, Park Road, Low Moor.

No fears here

SIR - I attack the EU and one of your readers at least thinks I am xenophobic. I also attack the Labour Government. Does that also make me xenophobic? Of course not. Xenophobia means "fear of"

I would like to put it on record that I fear no man. As for Europe, I have spent holidays in Holland and Belgium, the Balearic islands, the Canaries, mainland Spain and France. I have always enjoyed myself.

My preferred country is France and given the chance I would love to live there. That would make me a European. At the moment I do not consider myself European.

I live on an island situated in the North Sea, and I am English.

I attack the Labour Government and the EU parliament because I didn't elect them, and I totally disagree with their policies.

N Brown, Peterborough Place, Undercliffe.

Hands off, Will

SIR - We had the Swan Arcade and the wonderful Kirkgate Market with all the Yorkshire stone slabs demolished and now the Odeon cinema with its fine architecture is threatened.

All these buildings had character which unfortunately the modern buildings do not have.

Are we just going to let the Council bulldoze this building down so that Will Alsop can create something that nobody (according to the letters printed) really wants.

A water feature in the middle of our city will only attract the drunken yobs and the rest of the mindless idiots intent on destroying anything that appears nice, clean and respectable.

Please, Mr Alsop, leave us something of our heritage otherwise perhaps the City Hall and Wool Exchange could be next.

Roy Dennison, Bierley Lane, Bierley.

Hope for future

SIR - I am pleased that chief nurse Rose Stevens has agreed to take on the challenge of leading Bradford Hospitals through the next six months as chief executive.

Now that the Trust is looking to recover from the recent financial crisis, it is good news for patients and the people of Bradford that she has agreed to take the post. From the many positive comments I have heard, I am confident that she will be able to provide both competence and continuity in this difficult period.

Her appointment should also help reassure hospital staff who have contacted me in recent weeks with their concerns. Most of the questions that remain to be answered about the recent crisis are now ones that should be asked of the Government and not the Trust.

I also hope that former Chief Executive David Jackson will come to be remembered more for the many considerable achievements over his decade in office than for the Trust's recent difficulties.

I am sure that the considerable effort and commitment demonstrated by the nurses, doctors, and other employees and volunteers will help it regain the three-star rating that staff have already earned several times over.

Councillor Matt Palmer (Governor for Shipley), Peel Place, Burley-in-Wharfedale

Meters, please

SIR - According to Yorkshire Water's recent pamphlet the average person uses 145 litres of water every day. So if you live alone that's 52,925 litres in a year, but if the couple next door have four children then on that basis they will use a whopping 317,550 litres over the same period yet their water bill will be for exactly the same amount as yours.

With electric and gas you only pay for what you have used so come on Yorkshire Water, let's have a meter installed in every household and make everyone pay their way.

David Rhodes, Croscombe Walk, Bradford 5.

Police spin tactics

SIR - On March 14 under the heading "Mum and child in threats ordeal" you reported a story of a man attempting to steal a woman's purse on Greenway Drive, Allerton.

A police spokesman was quoted as saying: "This is not the kind of area in which we see this sort of crime."

Which planet are the police on? This area is plagued with this, and many other, types of crime. Once again spin is being applied to lull the public into a false sense of security rather than sort out the problems.

P Lightbody, Allerton Road, Allerton.