A return to normal life is prevented by examples of pointless paralysis

sir – The audiology departments of three local NHS trust hospitals tell me they cannot open until given permission to do so by NHS England.

Hearing aids can only be serviced if they are posted to a department, which will then post them back.

Since March, I and countless other deaf people have become ever more isolated, not by fears about Covid-19, but by the deterioration of what little hearing we may have left. Without my hearing aids I am a danger to myself and to the world I live in: I hear neither fire, water, traffic nor most alarms.

People return, as requested, to hospitals, but in this case they are turned away.

Erica Barrett Hastings, East Sussex

SIR – It beggars belief that England is now the only place where people cannot get married.

So low down on the Government’s agenda is this empirically proven commitment to the stability of society that betting shops, for example, have a higher status. They may welcome up to 10 customers at a time.

That the bishops of the Church of England have been conspicuous by their supine silence here is shameful enough, but the unreasonable, unjust stance of the Government augurs ill for the social health of British society.

Rev R C Paget Brenchley, Kent

SIR – Spitfires were not made from recycled church railings (Juliet Samuel, Comment, June 20).

Many households did donate aluminium saucepans for the drive to build more Spitfires. Sadly, the misguided removal of iron railings from buildings and parks was an early example of gesture politics. Few were used and most were left to rust in dumps, many of which were still around in the Sixties and Seventies.

The Covid crisis has seen many more wasteful examples of wellintended but useless schemes. The removal of railings in the Second World War blighted the urban landscape, but the current lockdown has blighted the lives of young people and ruined the economy for decades to come.

Gp Capt John Skipper (retd) London SW19

SIR – Until food establishments are allowed to open I will not be going on a shopping trip. Shopping out should be a pleasurable experience, which definitely includes a cup of coffee.

Alan Ripley Polstead, Suffolk

SIR – If the Government wants to promote a return to normality, the best thing would be to cease the daily press conferences from 10 Downing Street.

Statistical updates are available online. Any changes can be announced by more conventional means.

Ending the daily “crisis briefing” would go a long way to persuading the public that normal life is resuming.

Brian Gedalla London N3