8
ThePress
Friday January 8, 2016
We’ll buy your house
Houses in any condition Fast completion & cash waiting No legal or agent fees Repossession stopped!!!
Mirfield 0800 7813862 webuyanyhouse@me.com
Warm tributes to Peter O’Neill Dear Sir, We have been saddened by the sudden loss of former councillor Peter O’Neill, who was a truly remarkable man in more ways than words can describe. Peter exuded warmth, love and generosity to everyone and always left a lasting impression upon those who he met. We will always remember Peter for his passion and desire to seek justice and equality for all. He never shirked a challenge and neither was he moved when confronted with the challenges of the day.
He will be hard act to follow From: Pat Crisp, Batley Dear Sir, I would like to pay tribute to Peter O’Neill, who sadly passed away, and thank him for all the hard work, help and support he gave me over the past 35 years. Firstly as a Brownie Guider at St Mary’s Church, Batley, and secondly as a commuity rights activist with the Carlinghow and Crossbank Neighbourhood Watch. He never missed a meeting and was always there with advice and sorting people’s problems out. He will be a hard act to follow. Our thoughts are with all his family.
Let’s have less of all these From: Mr AS Hemingway, Gomersal Dear Sir, Things to see the back of, or less of, in 2016: • The House of Lords; • The European Union; • The title of ‘Dr’, preserved only for medical people. For example ex-Health
Letter of the Week: Abdul Ghaffar, Fiaz Rashid and Mohammed Sadiq Patel, Batley Peter was a true example to all of us in that he always fought to establish the true at the expense of falsehood and this was witnessed in none other than his opposition to war in Afghanistan, Iraq and most recently Syria. For us, Peter was a man who strove to establish the rights of
Minister Dr John Reed; His ‘Dr’ bit was for a degree in communism in West Africa! • Wayne Rooney (footballer); • Double-barrelled names; • The plethora of Lords and Baronesses; • Any immigration over 20,000 a year; • Angela Merkel; • ‘Two Jags’ John Prescott and his efforts to talk posh, having become a member of the establishment. • Mammoth pay grades for chief executives of councils, NHS, police and other public bodies; • Unfairness. Failed executives (private and public) paid massive bonuses instead of being sacked.
Brian Firth remembered From: Andrew Hutchinson, Dewsbury Dear Sir, I was saddened to hear of the sudden passing of Brian Firth on Tuesday December 29. He was a popular, kind, caring, humble man of great honour and integrity. Brain was my general election campaign manager in 2010, when I stood as the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary candidate.
the Palestinian people and we will fondly remember him with regards to his unstinting service for this cause. Peter was no ordinary politician and served our community in Batley with distinction and a sense of civic pride. He was a proud Batelian who
I found him to be very thorough, committed and a man of boundless energy. We would often be out together campaigning in the daylight hours and then putting up posters on lampposts into the early hours of the morning. He never complained, no matter what the weather or workload was. I also knew Brian from other areas of life in which our paths crossed. He was a committed Christian and, along with his wife Collette was a member of the Dewsbury Minster choir and St John’s Church congregation, where he served as church warden. He was an academic support worker at Huddersfield University, where he assisted disabled students. He was a member of Dewsbury Matters, the local history group. He was active in many other areas of life too. A devoted husband, father and friend to so many; truly one-in-a-million, he will be sorely missed.
A few questions From: Christine Hyde, Dewsbury Dear Sir, With the £1 million spend on a new entrance for Dewsbury Hospital now
PLANNING APPLICATIONS D Waite, 10 Shepley Mount, Mirfield, twostorey side and singlestorey front extension. C Richards, 224 Hunsworth Lane, Cleckheaton, extension to form first floor accommodation with balcony. J Bentley, Cliffe Hill Nurseries, Cliffe Lane, Gomersal, extension to existing glasshouses. S Hussain, Unit 1, 588 Bradford Road, Batley, change of use from light industrial to car
repairs and sales. J Perch, 3 Sunnybank Woods, Upper Batley, works to tree(s) within a Conservation Area. A Dadipatel, 41 Track Road, Batley, extensions. I Khan, 49 Halifax Road, Staincliffe, extensions and detached garage. L Moorehouse, 212 Cliffe Lane, Gomersal, two-storey rear extenstion and formation of off-street parking. P Piercy, 70 Leeds
Road, Birstall, singlestorey side extension and demolition of existing garage. Ben Chappelow, 4 Sands Lane, Mirfield, discharge of conditions 3 (materials) & 6 (boundary treatment) on previous permission 2015/92334 for demolition of existing dwelling and erection of dwelling. S Lebari, 29 Hopton Drive, Upper Hopton, two-storey rear extension.
Stephen Meltham, 45 Mazebrook, Drub, conversion of barn to one dwelling. Kirklees Council, 10 Headlands Road, Liversedge, discharge of conditions 4 (parking), 5 (traffic) & 6 (access) on previous permission 2015/92491 for erection of two-storey modular building. K Ashraf, 46 Kilpin Hill Lane, Dewsbury, extensions and alterations.
strove to do the best for the people of the town. We will always be indebted to you, Peter, and we mourn your loss. Peter we will never forget you and your loving family are an endearing testimony to your legacy. May you rest in peace, Peter.
under way for cosmetic reasons, I am prompted to share some questions the local clinical commissioning groups do not put to the public in their AGM or ‘engagement’ events. These are: Should the NHS ‘fund’ profit-making management companies to plan and completely restructure the hospital services in England? Should the NHS fund the administration costs of ‘the competitive market for healthcare’ to the tune of five per cent, 10 per cent, 15 per cent, 25 per cent or 30 per cent? Should the NHS fund properly qualified doctors with five years’ training, or rely on volunteers and unpaid interns? The chairs of Huddersfield and North Kirklees CCGs may or may not be interested in your views. Your parliamentary representative should certainly be!
Changes are a crazy idea From: Wendy Senior, Dewsbury Dear Sir, Reading a newspaper last Saturday, I came across an article about A&E being centralised at Pinderfields Hospital six months earlier than planned, which means Dewsbury hospital will be downgraded to an urgent care centre treating minor ailments which will see critically ill and injured patients taken to a beefed-up A&E at Pinderfields Hospital. How much is beefing it up going to cost? Why is money raised by Dewsbury people being spent in Wakefield? I was at Dewsbury Hospital on Christmas Eve, I went to look at the new maternity unit and entrance being built and asked staff at the hospital what they thought about it. They agreed with me, it is a crazy idea. One nurse said how are they going to transfer women with difficult births, but the trust members
do not seem to care about lives lost, it is all about money. I was also at Pinderfields Hospital on New Year’s Eve afternoon looking for somewhere to park. There were no disabled parking spaces free, so we had to walk a long distance in the pouring rain. Where are all these extra people attending Pinderfields going to park? It also says in the paper that after being warned by the Care Quality Commission about low staffing levels and poor hygiene levels in parts of the hospital trust, the precarious situation is leading to fears of more top-down reorganisation by the government. This again is an EU directive – one large hospital for far too many people. The same has happened with the recent floods – councils forbidden to dredge the rivers to protect the environment, and not the people. Sir Stuart Rose and Sir Richard Branson insisting we stay in the EU because they are the large conglomerates who benefit most from the EU.
Water comedian From: John Walshaw, Dewsbury Dear Sir, Regarding the recent flooding, and in an attempt to bring a little levity into a subject which is very serious to some people, I do apologise for any hurt feelings it may cause. The Minister, when given a grilling about the recent flooding, tried to water it down, but has tarnished his reputation. He was warned about cutts in spending, but said: “We’ve got a pool of money which we shall put on the stream, but these things tend to ebb and flow. “We shall pump and pour more in instead of barging about laking as we are doing.” In my own opinion, the quay to all this is to flood the
area with money, wash away all the jetsam and flotsam and deadwood, lock the basin and levee a charge: Then wait for the tidal wave of complaints it produces.
Singing surface From: Mark Adam and B Rhodes, Dunbottle Debating Society Dear Sir, It is said at certain times of the year, residents of parts of York can hear the clatter of armour, hooves and the swish of marauding Roman soldiers as the ghost army moves along historical byways of Eboracum. There are the singing stones high above the Yorkshire Moors, on the way from Holmfirth to Derbyshire, where winds passing through the millstone grit outcrops mimic the lamented call of a young lass who, on hearing of the death of her lover in the Civil War, threw herself to her death below. Around the old Bomber Command satellite stations near York and Selby, people can hear on one night of the year the eerie drone of a lone bomber circling high in the sky looking for an unfogged runway to land on – a true tale of the Halifax Bomber that crash-landed with the loss of the whole air crew on a foggy night in the early 1940s. These are tales now set in Yorkshire folklore. There are hundreds to be told throughout Britain’s largest county. Well, has anyone heard of the sighing surface of Dunbottle Lane? Before Christmas, Dunbottle Lane was closed off for major resurfacing, and since its completion vehicles travelling along its route from St Mary’s Church to Greenside Road now emit a long and mournful sigh. It is not an uncommon sight to see drivers pulled up at the roadside examining the underside of their vehi-
Continued on page 9