How to highlight church’s development potential

LIGHTING the former St Andrew’s Church on Leeds Road in Huddersfield from the street lamp outside would surely be an economical way (estimated at less than £ 1,000) for Kirklees Council to highlight the Listed Building’s development potential to any prospective developers passing en-route to the nearby John Smith’s Stadium.

St Andrew’s was built in 1870 and is older than Huddersfield Town Hall (built 1875) so deserves some respect. For more than 100 years it served the Church of England with thousands of weddings, baptisms and funerals. In 1975 it was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese and was the venue for another generation of family milestones until being re-sold in 2003.

Its architect William Henry Crossland also designed Rochdale Town Hall, a building so admired by one Adolf Hitler that he planned to take it to Germany had he won the Battle of Britain.

Kirklees Council has lit Huddersfield Town Hall and Huddersfield Parish Church so why not St Andrew’s .

Perhaps Huddersfield Town FC could sponsor it. After all, the council has secured commercial sponsorship for its Kingsgate roundabout? HOW dare EU French negotiator Michel Barnier insult the Brits last week by saying: “We are going to teach you British a lesson” after the reportedly compromised EU Brexit talks with David Davis MP?

Followed this week by Luxemburg Commission leader Jean-Claude Juncker stating: “The British will regret leaving the EU” and finally we have Belgian leader Guy Verhofstadt in the EU Parliament who can’t wait ‘to veto’ or sabotage any deal finally on the table.

So the answer is simple, pay what the British have signed up to (ending March 2019) negotiate ‘deal or no deal’ and let the Germans worry who is going to buy their expensive cars; the Italians where to sell their wine; and the French their dairy products; notwithstanding the drop in visitors to Spain and Greece due to the fall in the value of the pound and that alone will pay the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 10% tariffs!

Then let us see how long these intentionally intransigent negotiators last because we have a massive surplus with the EU and they want us more than we need them and it is about time they “woke up and smelt the coffee” as, yes, the clock is ticking!

And will someone kindly ask them why my late father went over on D-Day and risked his life and many others died in order to secure their EU freedoms?

And this is how they repay us, by constant insults.

Good luck to fellow Yorkshire man David Davis in dealing with these nefarious individuals. The “cliff edge” is no problem and let us see the economic sweat if/ when we become an independent ‘Hong Kong’ replicate on their doorstep! ON Wednesday my car journey from home was down Lockwood Scar, the worst road in the area. Traffic lights and a gang of road repair men were in evidence ... maybe a glimmer of hope.

On the return trip home I saw that the ‘goat track’ now sports a beautiful tarmacked layby. You could not make it up.

However, the potholes remain to wreck another vehicle.