Letters, April 14, 2016

Don’t knock our area

Regarding the comment by Kelly Langfield that Kings Road is bad, disgusting and needs sorting out (‘Kids’ playground drugs alert’, DFP, April 7), I have lived here on Kings Road for over 25 years. Yes, we have problems - what area doesn’t?

You can go to the nicest parts of Bessacarr and see dealing etc. The area has improved a lot over the years with alley gates and cameras.

We are a mixed nationality area, but all get on with hardly any trouble. Empty shops have all been purchased and it’s getting back on its feet.

As for the prostitution problem, we have been saying the girls should have a tolerance zone.

That hasn’t happened yet, but don’t knock our area till you have lived here.

Ellie Kilburn

by email

Heart disease is heartless

Heart disease is heartless. I know first-hand the devastating impact it can have on families across the UK because heart disease took my father from me when he was just 50.

Each year, over 14,100 lives are lost to heart and circulatory disease in Yorkshire and the Humber. The need to find new ways to fight it is urgent.

By taking part in the British Heart Foundation’s new MyMarathon challenge you can help accelerate this fight by funding the vital research that is so desperately needed to end this terrible suffering.

I’m calling on everyone in the region to take part and challenge themselves to run the 26.2miles this May.

You can run it at your own pace in your own time, whether that’s over 4 hours, 4 days or 4 weeks so now everyone can go the distance. Sign up today at www.bhf.org.uk/mymarathon and help us save more lives.

Louise Hazel, athlete

British Heart Foundation, Greater London House, 180 Hampstead Road, London

Don’t bully the workers

We all know by now that the rich upper classes in the UK want an “in” vote at the referendum in June.

Cameron is going to spend more public money on leaflets to try and get voters to do what he wishes.

This does not surprise me but what I really do abhor is the way company directors and managers are telling their shop floor workers which way they want them to vote. The bosses are perfectly within their rights to vote whichever way they wish, but to tell the workers what they think is in their interest is surely a form of threatening behaviour. This is the same Europe that it was reported last week has seen terrorists entering through their open borders and what Cameron is wasting £9million on with leaflets to browbeat us all into voting for.

Dave Croucher

Pinfold Gardens, Doncaster

Vote to stop this madness

I have heard it said that we should be good Europeans and stay in the EU to help out the other members, who may not be able to manage without us.

As the direct annual net cost of us being in the EU this year, after rebates and the subsidies we get are taken into account, is “only” £10.40bn surely we can afford to help out our neighbours by contributing some of our surplus income? But wait - there is no surplus income!

This year the UK is likely to have to borrow in excess of £70bn just to balance our national books.

For some unfathomable reason the government considers it reasonable to give away £12.20bn of this borrowed sum in foreign aid and also to pay the previously mentioned £10.40bn to be in a club that not one of us voted to join in the first place. Isn’t it time to vote to stop this madness?

Mick Andrews, Doncaster OUT Group

Thorne Road, Doncaster

Show some more pride

People in this area do not seem to have much pride in their surroundings

It’s impossible to have a pleasant walk on a nice day because you have to slalom between the dog mess. Everyone with a dog says they clean up after them- clearly they don’t! I pity disabled people, who cannot avoid it, and have to ride through this.

Broken bottles, fast food containers and other rubbish are strewn along the pavements and green areas.

There are bins , but even if there aren’t, why can’t they take their rubbish home?

It costs nothing to keep the area you live in clean and tidy. Have a bit of pride.

Name witheld

by email

Plea to find medal family

We would like to make an appeal through your newspaper. We live in Cardiff, South Wales and recently while researching family history have found two non family WW1 medals among the effects of a late family member. Research shows the medals were awarded to a Yorkshire man named Amos Simmonite, we think of Doncaster born around 1895. At the age of 14 he worked as a pony handler under ground and served in the Royal Artillery as a shoeing smith and gunner. The medals, minus their ribbons, are the 1914/15 star and the British war medal.Soldier number 64094. Should any descendants of Amos wish to claim the medals, please contact us on the email address below.

Mike Brown

michael.brown50@
btopenworld.com

MEP claim is news to us

In response to Mr Andrews (DFP Letters page, April 7, 2016) regarding the Doncaster Out Group, The Labour Party believes it is in Britain’s best interests to remain in the EU and that is why we are running our own vigorous “Labour in for Britain” campaign: www.labour.org.uk/index.php/inforbritain

However, his claims that Yorkshire & Humber did not elect any Labour MEPs is certainly news to me and my Labour colleague Richard Corbett MEP, both elected at the last European elections.

Linda McAvan,

Labour MEP for Yorkshire & Humber

Don’t waste voting chance

Most of the stuff written about the forthcoming referendum has been written by “experts” but I have not seen any articles by “The Man in the Street” and I am pretty sure that it will be him that actually decides which way we go.

This morning my stepdaughter said she would not bother voting and this has enraged me somewhat.

A few years ago my wife’s boss had to close his firm down due to excessive interference from EU, and obviously I did have a chat with him to give him some sympathy. The part which astounded me was that to this day he is the only person I have met who actually voted to go into Common Market.

With hindsight I can see that it was already bad then, and today it is so much worse. Yet here we are 2016, with our only chance ever to put things right, and my stepdaughter says she will not bother. Here are some of my thoughts on why we should vote to leave:

Migrants will not stop trying to get here as they see our once-great country as their Nirvana, the promised land.

Our services in this country cannot cope because it is bursting at the seams.

If we did vote to leave, we would be able to trade with any countries that we want just like we did before all this was foisted upon us by Membership of the EU, and countries in the EU would still trade with us as they need us more than we need them.

We would be able to stop sending Child Benefits to EU countries just because the people choose to come here to work and keep our wages low.

Instead of looking to keep cutting benefits for disabled and pensioners we will have the money to look after our own. You never know, this could increase the number of jobs available to us.

It will not really matter how close the vote is, what will count more is turning out to vote and showing those in power we want to be listened to.

I would like to point out to my relatives that when I am dead and gone that their situation will be their fault and the fault of all the other people who did not vote. It will not matter to me then how we all voted - but vote we all must to actually get listened to. It is no good leaving this to others, by thinking your vote will not matter, because matter it will.

Mike Smith

Via email,

An end to cold calling

I doubt there are many among us who have not received an unsolicited call or text about making a personal injury claim. Recent figures show a 45 per cent increase in complaints to the Information Commissioner’s Office about such spam.

But cold calls are more than just a bugbear of modern life. Some claims management companies who make these calls go as far as to encourage people to be dishonest and make claims for injuries they do not have.

I am a personal injury lawyer and would be glad to see an end to the practice of personal injury cold calls and texts by claims management companies. The methods used by some companies reinforce misleading perceptions about personal injuries. The bottom line is only genuinely injured people who have been harmed through proven negligence have a right to compensation.

Jonathan Wheeler,

President of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers