Keep bridge, but don’t fix
IN Wednesday’s Feedback, Brendan McDermott writes we should save the Transporter Bridge as it’s part of our heritage.
I agree to an extent but can’t accept it be returned as a working bridge based on the number of visitors it would attract.
Not only would it cost untold millions to bring it back into service, the annual running costs are prohibitive at a time when we can’t afford to repair broken pavements all over the town.
Some years ago I suggested the bridge be tried as a visitor attraction for a period of time using the facilities invested in 2011 – the lift and upper walkway plus the visitor centre – to see if it was viable financially to the council and the towns ratepayers. Nothing as yet.
By all means let’s keep it as a monument to our industrial past, but as a means of crossing the river it is outdated and we should be more concerned about the future viability of the Newport Bridge, over which I have concerns.
CLLR RON ARUNDALE,
Kader ward
I AGREE with Brendan McDermott
that the Transporter Bridge represents Middlesbrough.
When it was built 100 years ago the area was thriving and the bridge was strong, working and earning money from the fares of the people it carried.
Now, it is disabled, not working and costing the taxpayers large amounts – like a lot of folk in the area.
The same can be said for the Saltburn lift.
Surely in these hard times our money can be better spent.
Why don’t the people who want to keep these wrecks set up a charity and take responsibility for them so that the money I pay in taxes can be better spent?
CA FRANK, Acklam
Handing over guns while holding jacket
BORIS led us into a proxy war with Russia – that’s a war where you give others the guns and they do the fighting whilst you hold their jacket. Boris and Europe and Nato thought it was boxing clever to let the Russians and the Ukrainians get killed and we would have no body bags. But it has gone wrong.
We in Britain head to a recession, our fuel bills are now out of control as Russia has Europe on its knees, the oil and gas has gone to Asia, the Ruble is at an all-time high and Russia is forced into the arms of China, who has being angered by US House of Representative speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.
Nato has made a major mistake, the same as Hitler and Napoleon made – starting wars on two fronts.
Can we fight wars on two fronts? Well, up to now it’s not going so well.
ANDREW STEPHENSON, Elton
Nature will always have the last say
IN the winter we get half an inch of snow and the country grinds to a halt. Traffic jams as far as the eye can see. Schools closed.
Stay indoors don’t go out for food or toilet rolls unless it’s absolutely necessary.
In Norway they have snow almost all year round, and I never experienced schools with locked gates or traffic jams and the pubs were always open.
Now we’ve had a recordbreaking day three weeks ago with 40.3ºc temperatures. And we can no longer grow spuds, it’s too hot for the donkeys to give the kids a ride on Redcar beach. Even Feargal Sharkey is preaching there’s no water.
Wind back to 1976 when there was no rain for three months but we didn’t all run around like headless chickens. We calmly waited for the heavens to open, and strangely they did.
No matter what we might think we can do to slow down global warming, nature will have the last say. And now they want me to go without a burger from the barbecue. Why don’t we just upset Russia and China a bit more and none of us will have anything to worry about. BRENDAN MCDERMOTT,
Thornaby