Letters to the editor

If there is only a 90 per cent success rate on next day delivery then there are an awful lot of letters that do not reach the standard.

If out of the 80 million items posted daily say, one million are first class letters then this means 100,000 a day are taking longer to reach you than we are lead to expect.

If the same ratio applied to all posted items this would mean that about 8 million items would not be delivered on time.

Possibly the Royal Mail can explain why bills and junk mail always arrive so punctually whereas the letters you really want seem to take longer.

On a more serious note: twenty or more years ago I was told when introducing use of post codes for various purposes in a large hospital in Leeds that second class letter with a post code would probably arrive quicker than first class ones without. Surely we should have improved on that standard in the intervening time. 90 per cent does not strike me as a particularly good hit rate.

R TICKNER,

Florist Street, Keighley.

SIR - Further to the letter from Rose Greenwell, who began 'I am yet another person who has been legally clamped', I would begin yet 'another person who did not want to pay'.

The Rawdon Road car park is owned by a Limited Company, not Ted Evans. He does have an interest and therefore will not hide behind the fact.

There are five large warning signs on the car park and the hours of business have been 8am to 8pm since 1984.

Why, therefore, did she not check the times? They are clearly displayed by the machine.

Her comment that the car park was almost empty seems rather strange. Does the local pub or shop give the goods free when there are only one or two customers in? No, of course not. Why, therefore, does goodwill come into the equation? Would it not have been better for her to simply put 60 pence into the machine to save all the trouble?

Rose Greenwell would also like the law changed to accommodate her, as she feels that the charges levied for non payment are excessive.

She is in for a shock, because the figures that have been bandied about as maximum charges for wheel clamp release are well in excess of ours.

Finally, we have kept our charges for the first hour at 60 pence for the last eight years, and intend to do so for the next three. This is to assist local businesses and local shoppers.

We also offer a year's permit for just over £1 per week to assist locals, hardly the action of a profit motivated company.

Admit it, you were cross because you got caught and everybody is naughty except the person who doesn't pay.

I would remind you of the investigation the Keighley News undertook into our wheel clamping operation and nothing untoward was found.

In fact the visitors questioned were positive that people deserve to be clamped when they don't pay the appropriate fee.

LILIAN EVANS, Director,

Worthside House Development

Company Ltd, Haworth.

SIR - Along with M P Thompson I too found the Keighley Greats supplement very enjoyable and am looking forward to the next.

However, I feel he is mistaken regarding Asa Briggs' ancestry.

I was in the same class as Asa Briggs at Eastwood Juniors and, along with others, both passed scholarships the same year.

As far as I remember his parents had a greengrocers shop at the bottom of Marlborough Street in Bradford Road.

When my father died, my mother had a lovely letter from Asa's mother who then lived at Morton. She signed herself 'Janie'.

Asa was a friend of Frank Spencer, whose father Anthony (the chemist) was mentioned in the Keighley News a few weeks ago.

R LAPWORTH,

Airedale View, Cross Hills.

SIR - Recently I had the misfortune to lose my wallet with money and my bus pass in.

I thought it was missing forever, but later the same day I had a phone call from a pleasant gentleman at the Keighley & District Travel bus office with good news that it had been handed in.

He offered to send it with the driver on our next bus for me to collect.

In this day and age such honesty is a very rare thing. I feel I must give my grateful thanks to the bus company and staff, but especially to the honest person who handed it in.

Unfortunately I do not know the person's name, so once again many thanks.

MR R KNIGHTS,

Scott Lane West, Riddlesden.

SIR - Information Communica-tion Technology and monotonous call centres were the central focal points of future sustainable development in the 20/20 Vision Document Bradford Council put together last year.

Unfortunately, this vision once again put high-powered local businessmen at the forefront of shaping our environment and our future.

In Keighley we are still recovering from Iain Copping's fiasco. Sustainable development has to go beyond the power mad entrepreneurs of the business community.

Chief Executive of PACE Malcolm Miller has recently outsourced jobs in 'Silicon Dale' which are now going to Mexico and China. Who knows or who is taking responsibility for the impacts such 'foot loose' companies are having in these developing countries where legislation is weak on health, safety and environmental issues.

The potential for genuine sustainable development lies in creating jobs through more beneficial and sound approaches.

For example, employment could be gained in Keighley through reducing landfill via recycling, reducing fossil fuel addictions via providing better public transport systems, and researching and providing alternative technologies such as wind and solar power as well as energy efficiency measures.

JANE HOWIE, Co-ordinator Keighley Friends of the Earth.

SIR - It's not, perhaps, often enough that we bother to acknowledge acts of gratuitous kindness. Through your pages I'd like to do just that.

On Saturday last I had a puncture in my trailer tyre at the roundabout end of Dalton Lane, whilst carrying a load of very heavy paving stones. The spare was flat and I was stuck. At a loss I popped in to a Carpets salesroom to see if anyone had a car pump.

No-one had, but a very kind lady sales assistant insisted on driving me to Burgess's garage, half a mile away, in order to borrow one.

But there was nothing available. The young mechanic (and his father, who happened to be there) couldn't have been more helpful.

He cheerfully drove me back to my car, took the tyre away and returned with it pumped up within four minutes. He then refused any reward!

We can perhaps be forgiven when leafing through some of the bad news stories in the Keighley News for thinking that such generous souls are no longer around. Well, I don't know their names, but they are alive and well and living in Keighley and I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all three.

ROBIN MARTIN,

St Marys Road, Riddlesden.

SIR - Members of the Bradford branch of the Alzheimer's Society are very concerned about a financial appeal some people have recently received from an organisation called The Alzheimer's Foundation.

We have received several enquiries asking if the two organisations are the same.

We should like to make it clear to your readers that the organisations are totally different.

The Alzheimer's Society is also a national charity but, unlike the Alzheimer's Foundation, has branches that work in local areas providing support, information and help to people with dementia and their carers. Donations to the Bradford branch of the Alzheimer's Society are used in the local communities of Bradford and Keighley.

The Alzheimer's Society is committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards in its fundraising, both locally and nationally. It also runs its own 'Research Now' programme with research into causes and treatments for dementia.

We hope that this letter will make matters clear.

RUTH GALLAGHER,

Branch Co-ordinator,

Alzheimer's Society, Bradford.