Silence the chimes

YES, Big Ben should be silenced to protect workers’ hearing. As someone who suffers from work-related hearing loss, I believe it is only right that an employer takes a responsible approach to protecting their employees’ health, safety and welfare.

It’s not just hearing loss we suffer, but tinnitus, dizziness, vertigo and loss of spatial awareness. Deafness is an invisible disability that cuts off the sufferer from other people. The bells won’t chime for just four years, but hearing loss is permanent. MiKe WeLLinGton,

rhyl, north Wales. REGRETTABLY, health and safety is blamed unfairly for many things.

Comparisons before and after the Health And Safety At Work Act 1974 show that in excess of 40,000 lives have been saved (and hundreds of thousands of injuries big and small have been prevented).

Not one life was lost due to health and safety failings during the building of the stadia for the London 2012 Olympics. Contrast that with lives lost in the building of stadia for other sporting events around the world. Sir BoB rUSSeLL,

Colchester, essex.