Letters - December 6, 2019

Removal of service will affect pensioners
Does the BBC have a problem with pensioners?Does the BBC have a problem with pensioners?
Does the BBC have a problem with pensioners?

So, is the BBC now at declared and unmitigated war with the older generation?

We all know that the licence fee concession is to end next year, but before that - in just a few weeks - the whole of the teletext (‘Red Button’) service is to be withdrawn.

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This will affect thousands who, like me, go to the text service many times per day to check the latest news, see the football results and the league tables, check the local weather - short-term and longer-term - see the lottery results and, from time to time, look up travel problems and so on.

All this goes on January 30 and it will mainly affect the older generation who are not computerised and do not have tablets or ultra-smart phones from which to get such information.

We will feel marooned.

“Why this?” you may well ask.

The BBC tells us they are looking to divert their resources more favourably towards online services.

It’s another piece of “Tough luck, oldies”.

We can see that the policy-makers at the top of the BBC are planning.

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These people are cautious about political scrutiny (with the risk of their removal) so, as soon as your new MP becomes known, lobby

them about what the BBC is doing.

A heavy weight of correspondence still has the power to affect outcomes.

Neil Inkley

Address supplied

Parking

Centre parkers denying access

I would like to raise the issue of parking at the Sports Centre West Park Drive Blackpool. I attend there on Tuesday and Thursday morning at 9.30am at the Active Blackpool Class. This group consists mainly of senior citizens who have had serious health problems and need to get a bit more mobile. In order to facilitate this I pay a monthly direct debit.

This last couple of months it has been full before 9am and the car park has remained full all day. If I go down and cannot find a space there, then I turn around and go back home. I should not have to do this. We know that when Blackpool opens something new like the Whitegate Drive walk-in centre, they never have enough parking spaces; there is also a school nearby. An overflow car park was provided but this in itself is quite small and part of it is on grass which we would not use with our health issues.

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What we need is something along the lines of what has happened at Moor Park where the parking is restricted to two hours (unless you are going to two consecutive classes then its three hours) When parking you have to book –in at reception and give your car number. The people who park there all day are parking there for free and denying access for people who need to attend the classes and are paying for the privilege.

There are also a large number of other people who attend the Sports Centre to use the facilities there and are also having the same problems.

Terry Bennett

Blackpool

Election

Corbyn needs urgent help

By announcing that should be become Prime Minister he would immediately close Chequers and ‘give it to a homeless family’, Cornyn has confirmed he is in need of urgent medical help.

No doubt he would do the same with Buckingham Palace.

The actions and views of this man defy belief.

Dr Barry Clayton

Thornton Cleveleys

Politics

Get rid of council chief executives

I wholehertedly agree with the suggestions to abolish the post of chief executive within local authorities, and I cannot understand why the public are not demanding this en masse.

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Perhaps people are not aware of the eye-watering salaries and expense bills the executives enjoy, typically equivalent to 70 times a Band D council tax bill. Or maybe they believe that councils could not function without them, a claim that would be hilarious to the hard-working council staff who work for them.

Or perhaps they’re willing to accept the empty cliche that local authorities must pay high salaries to attract the right people. Rather, I believe the ugly situation exists purely because it has evolved unchallenged, with annual salary increases and benefits packages going unnoticed for decades.

It’s time to call time on this extravagance. With their inflated salaries and expenses bills, these CEOs have forgotten that they are public servants, and behave more like captains of industry.

In many cases they hide away from the media, and so are never held to account, and the people who pay their salaries would find it hard to name them, let alone tell you what they do.

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Their sky-high salaries are only justified by reference to the team of over-paid, self-justifying executives that exists underneath them, the whole thing constituting a money-sapping gravy-train of mutual back-slapping, and not much else. Get rid of them all.

If these people want to drive around in Bentleys and crave six figure salaries, then let them go and work in industry – taxpayers can no longer afford to indulge them.

Local authorities will function just as well, if not better, without them and there would be a lot more money to spend on services and useful staff.

Jerry Diccox

address supplied