LETTERS

Crimes against housing

THERESA MAY’S housing extravaganza of £2 billion spread over ten years on 40,000 properties suggests £50,000 for each dwelling.

Not allowing for inflation, one wonders what can be built for so little money in any area in need of affordable housing.

Given the price of land with planning permission, the blocks of small flats will be of low quality, unless substantially funded from other sources.

Is the prime Minister taking financial advice from Labour’s Diane Abbott, or the lady selling 50p peter rabbit coins for 25p each?

DON TROWER, Braintree, Essex. I Hope the £2 billion of taxpayers’ funds that has been granted to housing associations will be spent on providing social housing.

Sanctuary Housing, the local preferred housing association, has contracted to buy the former prison Bullwood Hall to develop up to 60 mansions set in 48 acres of parkland. The site was sold to the builders redrow before planning permission was granted by rochford District Council.

It would be interesting to find out the increase in value of this oncepublicly owned site by the simple act of granting planning permission.

Locals such as me who oppose this development have suggested that up to 1,400 homes for ordinary families could be built on this land.

perhaps Mrs May is expecting council tenants to be granted one of the luxury homes. Do I see pigs flying across the horizon?

LINDA KENDALL, Rayleigh, Essex.

Heavens above

AS A lifelong practising member of the Church of england, I’m starting to despair at some of the absurdities that are preached.

what utter nonsense for Bishop rachel Treweek of Gloucester to suggest that calling God ‘ he’ is putting people off the Church.

If anything is putting them off, it’s silly messages by the hierarchy.

How does she suggest we begin The Lord’s prayer if we must not say ‘our Father’?

Jesus always referred to God as his father in Heaven, so are we to change what he taught us to say, just to please some ill-thought-out, politically correct gimmick? Certainly not. DAVID MORGAN, Shrewsbury, Shrops.

The burning issue

wHeN any report on air pollution is issued, the Green party and Friends of The earth get overly excited about the poor old motor car.

This is not the only source of air pollution. In the village where I live, wood-burning stoves and bonfires are causing a lot of pollution.

The soot particles that they produce can penetrate deep into the lungs and have been implicated in exacerbating serious lung and cardiovascular diseases.

ROBERT BISHOP, Billingshurst, W. Sussex. More families walking to school will protect our children from toxic air pollution (Mail).

Motorised traffic is the biggest source of dirty air in our towns and cities. one in four cars on our roads at peak times is on the school run.

To reduce congestion and the toxic air lingering around school gates, we need to encourage more families to walk to school. Closing streets to cars outside schools can also be effective in cutting pollution, with the added benefit of improving safety.

It’s a misconception that children are protected from air pollution if they are inside a car.

But it is clear the benefits of being physically active outweigh the air pollution risk in walking to school.

ZAK BOND, Living Streets, London E1.

Cash is still king

A SUFFOLK pub has stopped taking cash and the corporate world is pressing hard for a card only payment system.

However, I believe that paying by card is unwise because it means we are dependent on one method, Visa, and, if that goes down, as it did a few months ago, we are stuck.

paying by card means that your every purchase and much of your behaviour, including your habitual locations, can be tracked.

I am snubbing the move to cards and use cash at every opportunity.

PHILIP HODSON, Newmarket, Suffolk.

How not to negotiate

WHATEVER the outcome of the negotiations with the eu, the blame does not lie with the prime Minister, despite her awful Chequers deal. It lies at the door of the Tory rebels, the Labour party, the media and remainers.

After the referendum, those who had voted to remain needed to accept the result and then stand full square behind the prime Minister and her Lancaster House speech with its vision of Brexit.

Having a united uk would have given our negotiators a much stronger hand. Look at the unity of the other 27 eu countries, which allows Michel Barnier his adamant rejection of all suggestions.

I spent 18 years as a union negotiator and know the last thing you want to show the opposite side is cracks in your approach. This gives them too

many opportunities to divide your team.

Chequers is the result of all the carping over the past two years and the shameful way our negotiating position has been undermined. D. S. ASHCOMBE-HURT,

Sandbach, Cheshire.

Too close for comfort

THE problem with tailgating (Mail) is the fact that many people do not realise the distance covered during the reaction time it takes to move your foot from the accelerator to the brake.

Every 10 mph is equivalent to nearly 15ft per second. On a motorway where the limit is 70mph, it’s 105ft per second.

Even if you have a fast reaction time and good brakes, you would be unable to avoid a collision if the car in front had a burst tyre.

Most drivers exceed these reaction times and braking distances, which explains multiple pile-ups. On motorways that have chevrons 40m apart, the recommendation is to keep a two- chevron gap from the vehicle in front — this is the two-second rule.

This gives a reasonably safe gap, but you also have to make allowances for poor road conditions and your personal reaction time.

I have been tailgated at 30mph in a restricted area, with the car behind less than 6ft away. If I’d had to brake sharply to avoid children or animals, the idiot behind would have crashed into me. I have now installed front and rear cameras on my car. ALASTAIR KING, Trowbridge, Wilts. TO COMBAT tailgaiting, stick a notice on your rear windscreen saying: ‘The closer you are, the slower I will go.’ RAY FELLOWS, Cowes, Isle of Wight.

Scan struck a chord

I HAD to smile when I read about the reader who was surprised to hear Frank Sinatra’s My Way being played while he was in an MRI scanner (Letters).

On one occasion, I was in a scanner when, suddenly, Freddie Mercury appropriately belted out Queen’s I Want To Break Free.

Not wishing to sully any song by association with medical procedures, now, when I have a scan, I request silence, close my eyes and pray.

I have even ended up falling asleep. It’s a good method to counteract nervousness. Mrs EFROSYNI HOBBS,

London SE9.