Letters to the Editor - 26th March 2008

Mar 26 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

Taking credit for events

IT IS great to hear that Liverpool’s hotels are already feeling the Capital of Culture benefits (“Cult- ure celebrations boom for city’s hotels”, Daily Post, March 22).

However, as someone who already lives in Liverpool, I am still struggling to see exactly what is going on this year that would not in all probability have happened whether or not we had won Capital of Culture.

The Grand National festival is one such example – the festival is highlighted in Capital of Culture literature, but excuse me has this not been going on in the city for almost 150 years? Similarly the Mathew Street Festival, we have been enjoying this bonanza of Beatles events for many years now (the less we say about last year’s debacle the better). The opening of Liverpool One is also being championed as a fantastic moment for our city, but again this was a business development that would have occurred regardless of Culture status and having it merely serves to bring us up to the same level as our city peers in Manchester and Leeds and the likes.

I don’t mean to be a party pooper over the whole Capital of Culture thing, and I do believe it will bring great things for Liverpool in the long run, it is just that I am irked somewhat at the idea that individuals within the Culture Company and other such bodies should be taking the credit for events which other people have worked for many years to make them into brilliant reasons to visit Liverpool long before the city had any European titles.

L Moore, Aintree

Valuable legacy

GREAT art or not, Superlambanana has been a consistent source of debate, comment, inspiration and aggravation in its decade here, for which the sculptor deserves a reward.Š

There are ways of rewarding someone other than money, however. If the fee for Superlambanana to become a permanent resident were set at £1m (for the sake of argument), then how about this for a fair solution?

Taro Chiezo gets 20% as a fee; the other 80% establishes a bursary, sponsorship or trust fund for Liverpool artists, carrying Chiezo's name.

That way, Chiezo gets some money, plus lasting recognition and goodwill in the city, and local artists are helped to develop and thrive. The money could buy a building in the Baltic triangle for a group of artists to work, exhibit, and teach, for instance; fund a major prize, or many bursaries. ŠŠ

The Taro Chiezo Trust could be a lasting reward for the sculptor and a valuable legacy of Capital of Culture year, and the city keeps its beloved Banana. Everyone wins.

Arabella McIntyre-Brown, Aigburth, L17

Not car-friendly

HAS April Fool’s Day come early, because I could not believe the statement on the middle page of last Wednesday’s Daily Post? It says the North West’s most car friendly place is St Helens. Those who live in the town do not agree. I have lived there for almost 70 years and the centre is a joke.

Most roads are blocked off and if you want to get from one side of town to the other it can take 20 minutes or more – that is provided you know where you are going.

The council do their best to frustrate drivers, narrowing roads, diverting the traffic, putting up traffic lights that do not give many cars the chance to travel through.

The lumps and bumps also cause pain to many people, and some roads would look more appropriate in Beirut with all the holes and cracks everywhere.

We have some roadworks locally that have been going on for month after month, but rarely do you see anyone working on them.

M Johnson, Eccleston

Reusable bags

THERE is concern over the vast number of plastic bags being produced for one use only, and dumped into the environment.

Supermarket bags don’t need to be plastic at all. Many alternative materials have been considered and discounted as being just as harmful to the environment because of the greenhouse gases released in their manufacture. Maybe bags could be made from environmentally benign material such as hay, straw, weeds or leaves, cultivated just for this purpose and made into bags without the use of oil in the process.

If a machine can be made to construct just one bag from these materials, it can be duplicated and speeded up to make billions. Don’t forget, the bags don’t have to be particularly durable. All that we require is something to contain our shopping long enough to get it home. The bags can then be disposed of into garden compost.

There is talk of charging five or ten pence per bag. Well, if we can afford that, we can afford bags made out of something else.

Richard Matthews, Norris Green

Campaign issues

I’M WRITING shortly after receiving a Lib-Dem leaflet which, once again, epitomises the phrase “negative campaigning”.

Last election time, we had several examples of the same.

This year, the big campaign issue appears to be blaming central government for cuts – which is fair enough – but surely the picture of the fireman with the little girl and the message “will he get there in time next time?” is a bit much?

Along with the usual misleading bar chart, these leaflets reek of infantilism and are one of the main reasons why I will never vote for them again.

Alan Davenport, West Derby

Great con

IN YEARS gone by, every house in every street and every factory belched out smoke from burning fossil fuels, forests burned, wars raged and cities burned, but there was no hole in the ozone layer.

The great con perpetuated by governments and self-interested big business is to tell us we can do our bit to help, nicely taking the blame from where it should lie and putting it on the ordinary people.

So what has changed from those old days, should things not have got better with fewer greenhouse gasses? Yes, if they made any real difference they would have, but any gain has been wiped out and the problem made much worse.

Is it possible that up to 20,000 aircraft daily spewing out high octane gases, 40,000 feet up in the air, might be the cause?

S Howard, Liverpool 13

Parking costs

THE heading of your editorial on parking fines on Friday could justifiably have been “Good reason to avoid Liverpool and Birkenhead”.

Recently, areas in the centre of Birkenhead which had sensible time restrictions on parking have become fee-paying. Argyle Street is a typical example. This is truly cash cow country.

Some councillors may pride themselves on keeping council tax lower at the expense of motorists, but they have not added to the attraction of the town.

I wonder how much the plethora of parking machines and traffic wardens have cost local tax payers.

HN Taylor, Prenton

Blocked tourists

SO, ONCE again, tall buildings are being condemned by someone from outside the city. Had such an ambitious plan been along London city waterfront, it would have been heralded.

However, we manage to shoot ourselves in the foot by blocking tourist access to the Albert Dock at the very time that we are able to receive tourists, namely Easter.

I never cease to be amazed by the absolute nonsense of the city planners who cite the fact that signs have been up. But tourists will never see the signs before they arrive and will probably never again come back because of this.

At least tourists are coming, but such bad news is most unwelcome.

George Gibbons, Bootle

Clean up the mess

COULD anyone tell me what the point is of dog walkers taking the trouble to scoop up dog mess into a plastic bag and then leaving the bag just where it is?

While walking along the coast in Freshfield on Sunday, I came across four or five instances of where the dog mess in question was left hanging in its brightly coloured plastic bag from a tree or a bush.

It is nice to see dog owners displaying some semblance of responsibility for their pets and the countryside, but it completely defeats the object of poop scooping.

It would be far better to leave the matter to rot in situ, rather than blighting the landscape like this. After hanging it up, do they expect someone else then to go the trouble of collecting the disgusting object and carrying it to the nearest bin?

They really need to learn some common sense.

Pat Henry, Crosby

Terrorist threat

IT IS naive of Adam Kelwick to complain about his airport questioning (Daily Post, March 22). It is a fact that the present terrorist activity against the UK is from an identifiable group which is discriminated by race, colour or religion.

Based on this criteria, it would be counter-productive to question plane loads of Chinese or Caribbeans. It is unfortunate that innocents are questioned, but sprat and mackerel comes to mind.

Neil Carver, Meols

Feeble turn-out

I WENT to church twice over this Easter weekend, on Good Friday and again on Sunday. It is, after all, the most important date in the Christian calendar. However, at my local church I saw one of the most feeble turn-outs I have witnessed in years. Many people were putting it down to the bad weather.

How sad is that. Imagine if our Saviour had thought the same way.

K Timpson, Formby

MPs’ vote

SO, MANY MPs and cabinet ministers are “wrestling with their consciences” over the Embryology Bill – a measure designed to save lives.

Yet, a few years ago, many of these very same MPs trooped into the lobbies to vote in favour of the Iraq war, which has so far killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Odd, isn’t it?

DA Rainbird, Wallasey