letters round-up

Unfortunately I am still trying, like most people, to see how lucky we are to have a range of shops in Malton. The range of shops consist of food shops, hairdressers, banks and charity shops, and while the Estate seem to think it is fine to dictate what people want, as local people we do not.

Most people shop outside of Malton or shop online. This town is a joke.

Take, for instance, the food market. The last few times notices have said Market Place would be closed to vehicles from the Friday afternoon, but from Thursday lunchtime they are closing parking off and by Friday lunchtime there are very limited places.

Would it not be a good idea to ask what people would like to see in Malton and not just dictate what they would like?

Take for example Orchard Fields. There was a piece in the Gazette in April about underage drinking and litter. This is ongoing, only now the council no longer clean the litter up, but only empty the litter bins.

The only time Orchard Fields was really well maintained was when the last food festival was on and part of the public car parking was there.

Obviously a place of natural beauty and history is not as important to some people as it should be.

Would you not think that a small amount of money made from the car parking that weekend could have gone towards security cameras to help protect our beautiful Orchard Fields?

What a pity that genuine Malton people are not allowed a view, opinion or say in the matter of how their town is run, even though they have probably, like myself, lived and worked in the town for years.

Name and address supplied

Don’t be fooled

SO “UKIP is committed to a civilised Brexit negotiation” (Gazette & Herald letters, July 27) and would welcome more members.

Don’t forget, this is the “civilised” party of Farage’s “Breaking Point” poster, the leader, who has now stepped down (again) apparently to spread his idea of “civilisation” elsewhere in the world.

This is the same party which shamelessly exploited those xenophobic and racist elements common to all societies, conflating them with understandable fears for jobs in areas where immigration was most noticeable, and playing down the huge contribution made to society by immigration.

This is the party of extremists cynically masquerading as democrats. We have seen it all before.

Please, please, don’t be fooled. Ukip has achieved its goal: it is now redundant in a civilised society.

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave

Thanks for poetry

I WOULD like to thank Neil Chamberlain for his poem What is Charity? published in the Gazette & Herald on August 3.

Would that we all observe and remember it in our everyday lives?

I also enjoy the poems of Gillian Walsh of Bilsdale, and wonder if she has ever published a selection of them?

Ann Moorhouse, Malton

Wheelchair spaces

DO YOU have a favourite sports team?

Do you like to watch them play live? Imagine if your matchday experience were one of isolation, frustration – and even abuse.

Unfortunately this is the reality faced by many disabled football fans, who sometimes struggle just to secure a simple wheelchair accessible space, let alone a dignified matchday experience.

I work for the national disability charity Revitalise, which provides respite breaks for disabled people and carers at three accessible centres around the UK.

To mark the start of the football season, we did some research into the number of wheelchair spaces at Championship football stadiums. We were shocked to find that most clubs weren’t meeting the Uefa’s accessibility guidelines, which they signed up to more than a decade ago.

Blackburn Rovers, Derby County, Rotherham United and Brighton and Hove Albion all had more than the recommended number of wheelchair spaces for their stadiums. But the findings were not good news for disabled supporters in London, with Fulham, Queens Park Rangers and Brentford all in the relegation zone - each with fewer than 25 per cent of the wheelchair spaces required. This is simply not good enough.

It is shameful that some disabled fans are missing out on the chance to watch our national sport. Disabled supporters deserve the same enjoyable, socially inclusive experience as all fans, so we think it’s high time that Championship clubs upped their game and installed better facilities for fans in wheelchairs.

If you want to see how your favourite team performed, the full results are available at revitalise.org.uk along with more information about Revitalise.

Sarah Wiley, Revitalise