It’s incorrect to blame Kirklees for all our woes

I FEAR Mr Quarmby (Letter, February 5) has allowed his hatred of Kirklees to blind him to a few historical facts.

He blames the creation of Kirklees in 1974 for the loss of many Huddersfield businesses and industries.

Among them he lists Rushworth’s (sold to a Leeds company in 1966), trolleybuses (the last one ran in 1968), the market hall (demolished 1970) and Rippon (not Ripon) Brothers (closed 1971).

The loss of many of the town’s large engineering and textile companies is certainly to be deplored, but is mainly the result of public companies being bought up and closed down by international businesses moving to countries with cheaper labour - a process by no means limited to Huddersfield.

Oh, and last time I looked, the Black Prince was still prancing around on his horse in City Square, Leeds, where he has been since 1900. I AGREE with much that Arthur Quarmby writes lamenting the loss of the many individual shops that made the town attractive.

I was in Kingsgate on Friday in the large store at the end.

There were more assistants than people shopping.

I fear that we have lost Huddersfield shoppers to Meadowhall and the White Rose centre.

However, I have never heard of a statue of the Black Prince being in the square - I thought it was Robert Peel, an earlier Prime Minister whose name gave rise to ‘bobbies’ or ‘Peelers.’

The Black Prince was an unsavoury character to say the least and replacing him for Harold Wilson - Huddersfield’s brilliant son - is preposterous.

No, leave the Black Prince in Leeds where the old joke “why does the Black Prince face away from the Post Office? Answer: because he and his horse kept belching, consequently blowing the stamps off the counter!”

Leave Harold where he is - it is right and fitting to do so. DESPITE being discredited and proved spectacularly wrong over Brexit, the architects of Project Fear are at it again.

Why the government wants a report based on unsound and inaccurate data alleging that the country will be worse off economically after we leave the EU is bewildering.

Armageddon was forecast by the Treasury, CBI, IMF, Institute of Fiscal Studies, Bank of England, Uncle Tom Cobley and all if the nation voted to leave the EU and the complete opposite has happened.

Even the champion of Project Fear, David Cameron, has acknowledged Brexit is not as bad as he warned.

The economy continues to grow (for the sixth year in a row) unemployment falls, productivity is increasing, manufacturing booming, the pound strengthening and the Stock Market breaks records.

When we leave the EU, the single market and customs union, the whole world beckons to trade with us.

Already the spade work is being done on trade agreements with China, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and a host of other countries.

I, for one, am excited at what the future holds for our country, children and grandchildren.

We can embrace a whole new dawn with all of its endless opportunities and possibilities.

Yes, we will continue to trade with the EU but not bound by it.

I feel saddened that some of Feedback’s contributors are so lacking in vision and belief in the ability of our country to flourish outside of the EU.

Let us put doom, gloom and pessimism behind and reach out and grasp what can be a bright new era in our country’s history when we leave the EU.