LETTER: What have Normanton and Wrenthorpe done to deserve this?

When it comes to decisions made by Wakefield Council, M Wilson letter (A cess pit and dumping ground, letters, February 5) said it all about Normanton, just as Dee Stead wrote about the loss of Wrenthorpe's green spaces and identity (Village is '˜going through hell', letters, February 12).

What indeed have Normanton and Wrenthorpe done to deserve all the disadvantages of development yet none of the advantages?

The roads are crumbling and the air even more polluted due to rapid housing and commercial development, with its associated increase in the number of private and commercial vehicles on the roads, yet nothing is ever done to improve the infrastructure that should go along with such development.

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Normanton, for example, still only has an hourly train service (apart from one extra service in early morning and one early evening) Monday to Saturday and every two hours on a Sunday despite a huge increase in the number of commuters and others using the station to travel particularly to Leeds, Barnsley, Meadowhall and Sheffield.

As for a convenient bus service to Wakefield? For me it’s on the 147 hourly Pontefract route otherwise it is the laborious, round the houses, bone-rattling 187/188 service - unless I do a 15 minute walk into Normanton for one of the slightly quicker services running through the town.

Incidentally, the new bus shelters in the centre of Normanton don’t have the illuminated matrix service information display like the old ones did so there’s no way of telling when the next services are due – unless you’re able to text for information, of course.

Hardly surprising then that those who have a car stick to using it, as I do when I don’t have the time to wait around for ages for a bus that may not run or a train that’s invariably running late to Leeds.

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Councillor David Dagger (cabinet member of transport and highways at Wakefield Council) urges residents to speak to their local councillor or contact the council on a given number so that they can look into issues of road repairs.

Just one question - do the councillors in Wakefield not see all the problems surrounding them, or do they see them but just sit back and wait for Joe Public to report them?

As Councillor Dagger represents Normanton I wonder if he’s been made aware of the appalling state of the road at the junction of King Edward Street and the High Street caused by the shoddy reinstatement of the road by utility companies several years ago now?

When I have an hour or so to spare I think I’ll compile a list for Wakefield Council of all the Third World standard roads in the district - top of the list will be the mini roundabout junction at Lee Brig, Drury Lane and Station Road in Altofts (sorry in Normanton, as Altofts is no longer recognised by the Royal Mail, the utility companies and most other organisations)

James Morris

Drury Lane, Upper Altofts