LETTERS

No way to help homeless

WELL done Gloucester City Council for putting up notices telling the public some of the people sleeping rough are not homeless (Mail).

I spent 30 years managing a hostel for homeless men and though they were getting accommodation, support and benefits, I often saw some of them claiming to be homeless and hungry in the city centre.

A charity worker has said the notices stigmatise homeless people, but leading homelessness bodies always advise the public not to give money to beggars.

ERIC WATERS, Lancing, W. Sussex. WOOLLY- MINDED, liberal dogooders have criticised a council for warning people not to give money to homeless people.

The council could not be more right: this is called common sense and tough love.

I gave £56 to provide shelter for two homeless people at Christmas, make charitable donations and give food and coffee to people who are living on the streets.

But I will never give the homeless money. If no one gave them cash, there would be no beggars.

MALCOLM CRAVEN, Bognor Regis, W. Sussex.

Fluoride stops the rot

HOW sad that we are a nation of children with rotting teeth (Mail). However, in Watford, Birmingham and the Republic of Ireland, mouthfuls of rotting teeth are rare as public water supplies are fluoridated.

At one part of fluoride for one million parts of tap water, it is the same level as naturally fluoridated areas, such as Maldon in Essex.

It has no effect on the taste of the water or anything other than the reduction of tooth decay.

In Birmingham, where I qualified as a dentist, the dental dean and medical officer of health managed to get fluoride introduced into the drinking water without much fuss.

When, eight years later, the new dental hospital opened, there was a shortage of local emergency patients needing extractions or fillings. But there was a high demand from patients living in nearby Staffordshire and Warwickshire, which did not have fluoridated water. Dr ROBIN EGGLESTON,

Bridgend, South Wales.

Making waves at Radio 2

DO THE people who run Radio 2 know what they are doing in getting rid of the great Paul Jones and moving Anneka Rice from Saturday morning to midnight? Will Elaine Paige and Johnnie Walker be next for the chop?

What they should be doing is dropping the vastly overpaid Chris Evans, Steve Wright and Graham Norton. Perhaps new Radio 2 boss Lewis Carnie should appear on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

PAUL GREEN, Dagenham, Essex.

Forgotten supporters

LIKE many other local constituents, I discontinued my Conservative Party membership when David Cameron arrived in Downing Street.

After Theresa May was elected Prime Minister, I was invited to re-join, which I did. Every year in the past I received a renewal letter, but when my annual membership ran out in September, there was none, so I let my membership lapse.

If this neglect has happened across the country, it may be why membership has been decreasing (Mail).

LESLIE R. BROWN, Bognor Regis, W. Sussex.

No more than PM’s pay

I AGREE that no one at the BBC should earn more than the Prime Minister, but this doesn’t go far enough. No one who is being paid from the public purse should earn more than £150,000.

This includes those working for local councils, the NHS, universities and the police. The idea that we have to pay larger salaries to get the best talent is fatuous, as lots of people at the BBC could be replaced overnight and no one would care.

If these people think they can earn more in the private sector, why don’t they resign and see if they can?

ANDY BIRCH, Wythall, Worcs.

Bargains to avoid

THERE are no bargains to be had in the sales (Letters). My wife and I worked for the Fifty Shilling Tailors from the Seventies to the Nineties and used to dread the sales.

All the dross from every other deadend shop would be sent to our store where it was known our salesmen could sell sand in the desert. Even so, you couldn’t give away most of the stuff.

So we never bother with sales. When I see the lengths that some people go to grab a bargain, it makes me cringe. ALAN DASH, Macclesfield, Cheshire.

Praise for NHS

I’VE become so tired of hearing complaints about the under-funding of the NHS that it was refreshing to read Littlejohn’s view that the main problem lies in our expectations.

It’s easy to blame the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, but when do we ever hear about personal responsibility?

The political parties dare not criticise the feckless for fear of losing votes, but we can’t continue to throw millions at treating avoidable illness, nor should the NHS be expected to

fund elective procedures. i just pray there will be enough left when it’s my turn to dip into the bucket full of holes. KAREN MOORE, Boston, Lincs. i WORKeD in a london teaching hospital in the Seventies and even then people treated A&e like a doctor’s surgery. On Sundays, whole families would arrive — we would joke they preferred it to a day out in hyde Park.

People would complain they had been kept waiting with a cut finger when they had seen us perform CPR on a patient.

My son is a paramedic and when he was called out to a seriously ill baby, a neighbour berated the ambulance driver for parking outside her home.

he has also been in a queue of ambulances waiting to go into A&e, as too many people are wasting NhS resources.

M. WRIGHT, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. The NhS is not letting us down. i was admitted to Doncaster Royal infirmary as an emergency case and the resuscitation team who treated me were professional, sensitive and supportive, while other staff cared for my worried wife.

After i was stabilised, i was given a bed on a high-dependency ward 13 hours after admission. it’s thanks to the NhS i am recovering. TERRY WAKEFIELD,

Doncaster, S. Yorks.

On the wrong road

The money to build roads with a better view ( Mail) would be better spent on badly needed repairs.

The first rule of the road is to look as far ahead as possible to anticipate hazards, giving you time to react.

however, because of the state of the roads, you have to focus on the Tarmac right in front of the bonnet, looking out for potholes.

So we don’t need roads with a better view to keep us awake. Spotting and avoiding the potholes does the job.

MIKE HARRIS, Bletchingley, Surrey.

Border check

FRANCE, like much of europe, chose to open its borders under the Schengen Agreement, so why is Britain being asked to fork out to beef up security at Calais (Mail)?

Rules on migrants say they must be accepted by the first country in which they arrive. BOB MacDONALD GRUTE,

Newquay, Cornwall.

I PICK up rubbish from Sussex beaches every day: fishing nets, clothing and shoes, plastic bags and bottles, food wrappings and party balloons.

But the most common litter is thousands of plastic bottle tops. That’s why I believe that if a bottle deposit scheme were implemented, the money should only be refunded if the bottles are returned with the tops.

Cruising on our canal boat in the Midlands, I have observed that, as the water level falls in the locks, the walls become festooned by multi-coloured plastic shards. These become fragmented over time and this plastic soup eventually migrates to the oceans.

Sadly, the waterways are used by many as a disposal unit, but nothing can be done unless the perpetrators are caught in the act.

Under every bridge float empty fast food containers as the junk-food scoffers see the canal as a bin. I fear the only answer to this mass pollution is the impossible: 24-hour camera surveillance and heavy fines.

Grass verges should be litter-picked before cutting to stop plastic debris being fragmented into ever-decreasing shards, vast quantities of which migrate to land drains and eventually the sea.

Thousands of people on benefits and in prisons could be employed as litter pickers. It would help with the obesity crisis if a few more people had less time to sit about eating and got more exercise, thereby killing two birds with one stone.

In fact, everyone should make the effort to pick up any rubbish they see, which would make the world a safer place for wildlife. MARYLYN ELPHICK, Normans Bay, E. Sussex.

A lesson for all ages

THE Mail wants to save the planet and the Tories want to tax anything holding food and drink. The problem with rubbish is people’s attitude to it: plastic gets in the ocean because people drop it in the streets. You can spot the route schoolchildren take from shop to bus stop by following the cans, bags and crisp packets they chuck on the floor.

My local council recently cut back hedges on the main roads and exposed the large amount of rubbish thrown from cars. Parents are as bad as their children with their attitude of ‘don’t worry, someone else will pick it up’.

Until the public stops treating parks, beaches and verges as rubbish tips, no amount of 5ps will solve the problem. A. MCGRATH, Wallingford, Oxon.

Cut the bags

WHEN my Tesco online order is delivered, it is packed in as many as 15 plastic carrier bags.

I even got six bottles of wine in individual bags rather than a cardboard wine carrier. I don’t want to opt out as my groceries would then be delivered in dirty delivery boxes. Supermarkets could do more if they trained their staff to be aware of plastic waste.

P. F. BRYANT, Salisbury, Wilts.

Taking the wrap

WE ARE being engulfed in a sea of plastic packaging. I often find vegetables and fruit packed in three layers of the stuff.

So, I remove it all, retaining the barcode which can usually be peeled off, then take the unwanted pack to the customer services counter. Sometimes they ignore me, so I pop the packaging on the desk for them to dispose of.

This is not always met with enthusiasm, and staff have confronted me about it several times. Why? Excess packaging is the supermarket’s problem, not mine. If we all took a stand on this, the manufacturers would have to take action.

It is grossly unfair that a 5p plastic bag tax is passed on to the customer. The Government should pressure manufacturers to come up with a solution or an alternative, but instead it goes for the easy target — us! LINDA CURLEY, Gillingham, Dorset.

Radical overhaul

WE CAN all do our bit. However, unless the packaging makers and retailers are forced to take responsibility, nothing will change. The 5p tax on plastic shopping bags may have resulted in fewer bags being used, but they are still being produced.

A 25p latte levy is unlikely to reduce the number of disposable cups used because not everyone is prepared to carry a cup around with them and most coffee shops refuse to fill my own cup, citing health and safety.

We need a radical overhaul. Nonrecyclable or non-biodegradable packaging should be banned. Supermarkets should be required to provide recycling points at the checkouts, as is the case in Germany.

Coffee and fast-food chains must offer a refundable deposit on each cup or a swap scheme — turn up with yesterday’s cup and they give you a discount on today’s drink.

CAROLYN MITCHELL, Harrogate.

The laws are in place

TWO important pieces of legislation to help in the fight against waste have been in place since the Nineties. The Packaging ( Essential Requirements) Regulations prevents the obvious overuse of packaging materials.

The pertinent clause states: ‘Packaging volume and weight must be the minimum amount to maintain the necessary levels of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and consumer.’ A plastic-wrapped coconut and a large box containing only eight biscuits surely contravene these regulations.

The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations applies a levy on all sections of the packaging industry from raw material manufacturers to retailers.

This was based on the weight of packaging and type of material it was made from. The aim was to create funds to aid and improve recycling of materials — how is this money being used? CHRIS WAKEFIELD,

Chippenham, Wilts.

The paper answer

WHY is it left to the consumer to rectify the issue of too much packaging going to landfill?

At Christmas, I was overwhelmed by the amount of packaging for children’s toys, even having to use a screwdriver to separate one toy from its packaging.

The supply of free paper bags should be standard when buying clothes or non-food items.

If a plastic bag is requested at the point of sale, then its cost plus the 5p levy should be charged.

EDWARD GREEN, Northampton.