SIR - Your readers will no doubt be aware of the peaceful protests in the form of slow moving convoys of mainly heavy goods vehicles which took place last Wednesday morning as part of the protests by people and businesses concerned with their econmoic and financail survival over our long held, oft-stated and acknowledged (even by Mr Blair) rightful concerns.

We do not feel the need to restate the reasons for the protest. We would like to thank police officers who escorted the parades along pre-advised and agreed routes and, perhaps most importantly, thank the overwhelming majority of the public who not only tolerated the disruption to their morning routes but demonstrated with their good humour, applause, thumbs up, headlight flashing, horn tooting and even a few cups of tea en route.

This would be contrary to the opinion which many people would have the general public believe, preferring to brand us anything from right wing activists to people who just don't care about others. There could be nothing further from the truth.

Perhaps it was significant that the vast majority of media coverage focused on traffic disruption rather than the fact that these protesters, in acknowledging the "red alert" in the NHS and claimed difficulties faced by the emergency services had managed to collect from their already low fuel supplies a stock of diesel fuel which was donated to the ambulance service. A further supply was provided to a hospital out-patient in Cullingworth to ensure he could make his vital daily trips to Cookridge Hosptial in Leeds.

The protestors are simply a group of people with a common cause who have been driven to band together for the greater good of all

RH McDowell,

Bradford and Keighley Road Hauliers,

Valley Road,

Bradford.

SIR - LET'S have a cool look at the facts behind the present fuel crisis.

First of all, the tax on petrol was imposed, initially by the Conservatives, as an environmental measure. Labour has followed the same policy and has provided funding to improve public transport.

Secondly, it is the oil-producing countries that have brought about a world-wide increase in prices. To reduce the tax on fuel would be to deprive the Exchequer of funds needed for public services and would at the same time, give the green light to the oil producers to increase their prices again!

If we are able to pay less tax on fuel, are we prepared to pay more in Income Tax? The money for health, education etc has to come from somewhere.

As for the foreign lorries on our roads, perhaps we should have a toll system on motorways, as the French have. Then our foreign competitors would have to contribute to our economy.

Joan Smith

Lytham close, Skipton

SIR - The fuel protestors want petrol to be taxed at the level it is on the Continent? Surely some mistake? A uniform rate of tax across the European Union? Why these people will be calling for a single currency next because that is the logic of their argument.

If we want the same taxes on petrol as Europe, then we want the same income taxes as Europe.

S Dobson,

Keighley Road, Skipton.

SIR - Your editorial "Harsh lesson from fuel crisis" (Craven Herald September 15) was a good balanced report but some other reports were off the mark.

Everyone knows that fuel costs are too high but most of the protestors aren't the worst hit by them.

Farmers get red diesel at about 25p per litre and they are already the most subsidised body in the UK. The hauliers claim back the VAT included in the pump price, the self-employed and businesses do the same.

Consequently it is Joe Public who pays the full pump price with no rebates who are the losers.

In effect, the blockaders are being subsidised by the taxation system to disrupt everything.

G Aldersley,

Meadow Way, Barnoldswick.

SIR - A friend has sent on your editorial about the fuel crisis (Craven Herald September 15).

My dad was a miner. He was on the picket lines during the last miners' strike. When not being struck about the head by a policeman with a truncheon, he had to endure wagon drivers waving £10 notes at him as they drove past blockades taking coal out to keep the country running. Mind you, he was the "enemy within".

The pit shut a couple of years later. Dad lasted a little longer. He died three years ago.

E Roberts,

Ackworth Way, Pontefract.

SIR - So, Pete Gardiner (Letters September 15) writing approvingly of the leaders of the recent demonstrations describes them "as members of the public, like you and I, not members of a union of any sort".

Perhaps Mr Gardiner could explain to this retired former member of the National Union of Teachers and thousands of other trade unionists just how we all fit in with his scheme of things - Thatcher's "enemies within" perhaps?

Or would he categorise us as underclass dispensables, fit only to be shipped off like the Tolpuddle Martyrs to some latterday Botany Bay?

Richard Cooper,

Caxton Garth, Threshfield.