SIR – The drive for net zero appears to involve the total upheaval of British energy security, fuel poverty, the destruction of our economy and agriculture, and state-sponsored vandalism of our coasts and uplands (“Households to face net zero penalty for gas use”, report, March 30).
With all the political parties in our Parliament committed to this policy, doubling down on it is now more about political credibility than furthering the nation’s interests.
The second Covid lockdown was another such example. Our politicians are out of control and need to stop wounding the country.
Paul Gaynor
Windermere, Cumbria
SIR – Between tenants – and as a caring landlord of an all-electric cottage – I had the 14-year-old inefficient storage heaters taken out and replaced with new thermostatic, programmable electric heaters. I followed all the energy guidance, with double and triple glazing, low-wattage lights, extra roof insulation and a programmable water heater. I then arranged an assessment for an Energy Performance Certificate, hoping to upgrade my current E rating (Letters, March 30).
At the end of the visit, the assessor told me I still had an E rating. I was at a loss. He advised that I would have got a higher rating with storage heaters of a different brand, even though the ones fitted were equally efficient, programmable and could be set to a desired temperature. Failing that, he said the only other way would be to add solar panels to the roof and take up the floorboards to insulate under the floor.
Who governs the criteria for EPC reports? Are they the same throughout the country? Can we – as respectable, caring landlords – have some answers please? We will soon all be selling up rather than chase the required C rating.
Christine Asher
Tain, Ross-shire
SIR – I applaud the latest government initiative to force all of us to use electricity by charging us more to use gas (report, March 30).
However, I have recently been refused planning permission for the installation of solar panels on the roof of my garage. How does this fit with the new policy?
Roger B Johnson
Fordcombe, Kent
SIR – An EPC is a legal requirement when selling or letting a property. Bought new in 2013, my property’s B rating has been downgraded to a C on renewal. Nothing physical has changed, just the calculations in the software. As a landlord, I’m simply glad it wasn’t a C being downgraded to a D.
Paul Stark
Mirfield, West Yorkshire
SIR – May I suggest that all national and local government property, offices and workplaces should achieve net zero before any other organisations are required to do so?
Louis Vernazza
St Helens, Lancashire
Camaraderie at co-eds
SIR – Tim Watson (Letters, March 30) worries that all-male camaraderie will decline with the demise of single-sex schools. He need not worry.
Rugby fulfils all the needs of young males, and the teamwork, respect and mutual dependence he prizes are alive throughout the country, thanks to the selfless dedication of unpaid coaches.
My sons all played rugby while attending a co-educational school. Two of my eldest son’s former team-mates travelled to Australia for his wedding, such is the bond forged on the field. My youngest son, who still attends a co-educational school, has the same bond with his rugby mates, and he too is learning to live life by the core values this king of games teaches.
Elizabeth Harrington
Higham, Suffolk
SIR – In the mid 1960s the physics mistress left the local girls’ grammar school in Ware, leaving the three upper-sixth students to attend the local boys’ grammar in Hertford. I am indebted to this member of staff as I’m still married to one of the three young ladies 60 years (54 married) later.
Graeme Williams
Kings Hill, Kent
Blending honey
SIR – Your article on blending honey (Features, March 28) took me back 40 years to when I was a computer programmer at Reckitt and Colman. The company owned Gale’s Honey, which blended honey from countries around the world – including China, Australia, South Africa, Russia, Mexico.
All had different characteristics, such as colour, viscosity, dextrose and sucrose content (some nine measurable qualities in all), and the problem was mixing them in such a way as to ensure the even and consistent quality of the finished product. This was solved by my creating a system, using linear programming techniques, to provide a recipe for the factory to create the blend – or rather, two blends: clear and set honey. It was used for many years, even after I left.
John Warden
Driffield, East Yorkshire
Specs appeal
SIR – Can someone please advise what to do with old pairs of glasses? We used to take them to the opticians, but they do not accept them anymore, which seems a shame as there must be many people in the world who need glasses.
Janet Morris
Bewdley, Worcestershire
Registry closures
SIR – Glenn Stride (Letters, March 30) adds his unfortunate experience to those of others who have written about Land Registry delays.
I joined the newly opened Harrow District Land Registry in 1966 at the time of the government’s push to extend the compulsory first registration of title to land. We were turning around applications for first registrations within 12 to 16 weeks.
I appreciate that the registry may now be dealing with higher volumes, but we were working with processes that probably hadn’t changed since the 1920s. I would expect modern technology to have offset any significant increase.
My links with the Harrow Registry ended in 2009 when former colleagues and I marked its closure; a number of other district registries have also since closed. Perhaps this has something to do with the delays that people are now experiencing.
Alan Lawrence
St Albans, Hertfordshire
SIR – After nearly 35 years of proud service with the Land Registry, I, like many colleagues, was made redundant following the financial crisis of 2008.
Management slavishly followed government diktats to reduce staff numbers, though the department made no call on taxpayers’ money and paid a yearly dividend to the Treasury.
Several offices were closed and experienced staff were lost due to declining house sales. When the market recovered, insufficient staff were left to cope with the work and there was a decline in services. Tasks that had previously taken a week to process now take months. First registrations now apparently take between one and three years to complete – a sorry state of affairs.
It is sad to see the consequences of short-term government policy. The problem with the current system is that politicians never have to deal with the consequences of their decisions, and there is very little long-term planning.
Peter Harrison
Fareham, Hampshire
Dress code discipline
sir – When I first qualified as a pharmacist I worked for Boots the Chemist. I used to wear a white shirt with a separate starched white collar (Letters, March 30). I had 50 of the latter, and would use 25 to 30 before sending them away for cleaning and re-starching.
On one occasion in 1963 I went to work wearing a smart pale blue shirt. I was told to come to work the next day “properly dressed”. At about the same time a female pharmacist who worked for the same company had to resign when she got married.
Alan Crabbe
Cardiff
SIR – I started work in the 1970s, when male office workers had to wear a tie. On sweltering summer days, they could not be removed until an edict was sent out from the MD’s office.
This edict would remind employees that ties should be either on or off – loosened, with the top shirt-button undone, was considered too scruffy.
How I miss those days.
John Bath
Tickenham Hill, Somerset
SIR – In the 1960s I worked in Barclays’ Lombard Street headquarters, where one day I was told that the then fashionable long-jacketed trouser suit I was wearing was “not bank”.
I retired to the lavatory, whipped off the trousers and returned wearing the jacket alone, which was deemed perfectly acceptable as a mini dress.
Geraldine Durrant
East Grinstead, West Sussex
The British Army’s role in saving the VW Beetle
SIR – The State Bentley used by King Charles and the Queen Consort during their current state visit to Germany (report, March 30) is a perfect example of Anglo-German symbiosis.
In 1998, the British group Vickers sold Bentley Motors and its Crewe factory in a notoriously mismanaged panic sale to Volkswagen. Recognising Bentley Motors’ great potential, Volkswagen invested in and developed the marque into the great success it is today.
What is perhaps less well known is that in 1945, after the Second World War, the Wolfsburg Volkswagen Plant became part of the British occupation zone and fell under the control of a team in the British military government.
As Karl Ludvigsen wrote in Battle for the Beetle: “Had the handful of British officers not engaged themselves so daringly for the factory and its workers for the next four years, there could never have been a VW today.”
A statue of Major Ivan Hirst, leader of the British military team, still stands outside the works at Wolfsburg.
Robert Hickman
Andover, Hampshire
Despair at Royal Mail’s erratic delivery service
SIR – I note the imminent increase in the price of stamps with despair (Leading Article, March 28). Royal Mail’s service is now so erratic that there is no difference between first and second-class deliveries.
My daughter recently organised a postal delivery of flowers from the Scilly Isles for Mother’s Day. They arrived a week late – and dead.
The company involved kindly offered to replace them and sent a second batch. They too took more than a week to arrive, with the same result.
The post now comes weekly – a less than satisfactory situation for this nonagenarian who depends on it for hospital appointments.
Brenda Higgs
Markyate, Hertfordshire
SIR – I was obliged to send a batch of stamps of various denominations back to Royal Mail as it was about to declare them null and void. In return, all I received was a block of first-class stamps. I used one last Saturday to send a birthday card to my daughter. It arrived on Wednesday.
Royal Mail has no concept of what customer service means.
Graham Lovelock
London SW18
SIR – I think posties are wonderful. They work in all weathers, monitoring households and reporting unusual activity. The word strike never seems to be mentioned in our area.
Sadly, much of what they deliver today comes in the front door and straight out into the recycling.
Duncan Rayner
Sunningdale, Berkshire
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