Hear All Sides

RAILWAY BRIDGES

THE Government has yet again tried to cover up its own shortcomings, this time by blaming Gary Hart for the consequences of his accident when he ran off a road onto a railway line.

The Government has known for very many years of the inadequate strength of bridge parapets and of the inadequate length of the crash barrier protection on the approaches to bridges, and that considerable work needs to be carried out to bring them up to a satisfactory standard.

The lack of adequate length of safety barrier protection on the approach to the bridge over the railway is all too apparent. This weakness does not only apply to roads over railways but also to roads over motorways and trunk roads.

That the Government was aware of this lack of adequate protection can be seen in the work that is currently taking place strengthening bridge parapets throughout the country.

Unbelievably, the Government is still arguing over who should pay for this safety work where the roads are not trunk roads or motorways.

Gary Hart was used to very little sleep, as are several Government ministers, and this is no crime. He did all the right things after his accident in phoning the emergency services to report the hazard, and he should therefore not be penalised.

On the contrary, ministers should be held to account as to why they had not instructed the required safety work to be carried out earlier. - Name and address supplied.

FOR once I cannot sympathise with an Echo campaign. The demand for safety barriers at the approach to every road bridge over a railway line is open to criticism on at least two counts.

First, it subscribes to the current philosophy in which no one can be held responsible for their actions and disasters are always the fault of institutions.

Gary Hart was the only cause of the tragedy at Great Heck. Whether or not his sentence was adequate, he should have lost his driving licence for ever, as a warning to the motoring public generally.

Your campaign is also defective in practical terms. How much protection is deemed sufficient? Suppose Mr Hart had been driving a 44-ton articulated lorry? The structures needed to restrain such a vehicle at speed would be enormous, ugly, and vastly more expensive than can be justified by the minute risk involved, bearing in mind that hundreds of bridges nationwide qualify for the treatment. - Bob Jarratt, Caldwell, Richmond.

THE EURO

I AM concerned that many euro sceptics are raising inaccurate points when arguing their case. I am keen to clarify these misconceptions.

First, they repeatedly allege that joining the euro would "hand over the levers of economic power to Brussels".

Not so. The main instruments of economic policy, such as what to tax, the level of different taxes, what we want public expenditure to be targeted at, what social security system we want, and so on, remain matters subject to national decision taking. Only monetary policy, where the scope for separate national action is anyway highly restricted by world markets, would be exercised jointly with our EU partners.

Second, they claim that we would lose the Queen's head on our currency. In fact, one side of every euro coin has national symbols on.

Third, they allege that we would lose our national identity. How? Holland, Ireland, France, Germany, etc do not appear to have lost their identity, nor do they wish to do so. Is our identity so weak that sharing notes and coins with our neighbours would threaten it?

Fourth, they raise a red herring about the EU being run by un-elected bureaucrats. In fact, policy decisions are taken by the elected national governments meeting in the EU Council, double-checked by the elected European Parliament. The European Commission can only make proposals and implement what has been agreed - not dictate to the member states. Fifth, they sometimes claim that it would damage us economically. The opposite is more likely. With over three million jobs dependent on our exports to the rest of the EU, it is folly to handicap our exporters with the twin burdens of exchange costs and hedging costs when their main competitors within the European market will no longer face such handicaps. - Richard Corbett MEP, Yorkshire and the Humber.

THERE is nothing inevitable about Britain replacing the pound with the euro and there is no reason why we can't continue to be a constructive and influential member of the EU whilst keeping control of our own economy.

Tony Blair himself said so in a recent interview with an Italian newspaper. That is what we have done over the last three years and Britain has prospered.

Our unemployment rate is almost half the eurozone average and we now have higher take home pay than any other EU country except Luxembourg.

The crucial difference between Britain and the eurozone is that we can have the best of both worlds. We can use the euro when we want to without having to give away control of our economy. That is not a reason for replacing the pound. It is an argument for keeping the choice that we currently have by keeping the pound.

Companies that have operations in the eurozone or who trade with euro countries will be the most affected by the introduction of notes and coins and their accounting systems will need to be adapted so that the European operations are able to handle the new currency. But for everyone else, the euro is just another foreign currency.

The British economy has benefited from the stability of having our own currency and that is why almost two-thirds of businesses want to keep the pound. - John Elliott, Chairman, Business for Sterling North East.