Letters
Showing respect
for innocent victims
S Smith
Textiles and Design
Surely
if the University had three minutes silence for the innocent
victims of the attacks on the USA, we should now have
three minutes silence for the innocent victims of the
attacks on Afghanistan?
Seeing your
name in black and white
Adrian
Iredale
Head of the Teaching and Learning Office
I
was disappointed to read in the 8 October 2001 edition
of the Reporter that you had chosen not to publish
a full list of 2001 staff promotions and transfers and
simply refer readers to the Reporter website.
These
promotions have been a feature of the Reporter for many
years now and I think this is an important means of publicly
recognising the achievement of staff of all categories
and all grades. Simply placing this good news for individual
members of staff, the majority of whom would never normally
get a mention in the Reporter, on the website is, in my
view, missing an opportunity to highlight outstanding
contributions by the University's most important asset,
its staff.
Editor's
note: The Reporter is printed during term time
only, and all promotions announced during that time are
printed in full. This year, as some promotions were announced
after the last issue in June, they were posted on the
web to make them immediately accessible for all staff,
rather than held over for three months until the first
Reporter in September.
See
the recent clerical promotions.
No basis for
safety notice claims
John Binns
Head of Security
We've
made extensive inquiries into David Jackson's claim (Corporate
image over student safety? Reporter 470), and have
asked police if they can shed light on the allegations.
However,
we have been unable to determine the source and veracity
of the comments, which do not sit comfortably with ongoing
University partnership work, including Walksafe, where
joint security and police patrols worked together for
the two weeks around freshers induction.
Crime
prevention advice is widely circulated and displayed.
The safety booklet Fightback is supplied to all students
and a video, Wise Up, is shown during freshers' week and
is also made widely available. Both were jointly produced
with the police. We are happy to display appropriate information
both on campus and at halls of residence.
We
are also working closely with student union representatives,
RCS, the police and others to distribute appropriate information
and ensure that it is kept up to date.
Urging support
for SCR cafe bar
David Palliser
School of History
I
am sorry that there was nothing in the October 8 issue
about the reopening of facilities in the SCR building
this week for all staff and postgraduates.
These
include not only buffet lunches, which have been reasonably
well attended, but also for the first time coffee and
sandwiches from 9.30 to 3.30. Today I called in for coffee
at 11 after lecturing in Roger Stevens to find I was the
first customer, 90 minutes after opening. I appreciate
that we are all much busier these days, and that the SCR
is distant from some parts of campus, but can I please
urge more support? Otherwise there will soon be a call
to erode the already much-diminished facilities for staff
and postgraduates even further. We are already much inferior
in this regard to other peer universities like Birmingham,
and the increased pressures of teaching and administration
should make some minimal staff facilities more rather
than less important.
Editor's
note: The opening of the new cafe bar was flagged
up in Reporter 469 (Hot and tasty, page 8).
See
the coverage of the new facilities.
The more you
use, the more you pay
Tony Wiese
School of Mechanical Engineering
I
read with great interest the feature in Reporter 469 regarding
the study of road and rail users carried out by Professor
Nash. Whilst research into our travelling habits and ways
of improving them has to be commended one has to question
the reasons for charging for the use of trunk roads leading
into our conurbations.
As
we discover whilst travelling into Leeds during the summer
months, the main reason behind congestion on our urban
roads is mainly due to people doing short journeys, eg.
taking children to school. As they start and end their
journeys within the conurbation they wouldn't pass the
toll point and therefore wouldn't be charged. Also, because
they're doing short journeys the car's engine isn't warming
up to its correct temperature and therefore isn't running
efficiently, ie it's creating more pollution than one
that has travelled a few miles and is running efficiently.
Clearly
something has to be done if the situation is to be improved,
but what? The government scheme that offers a discount
on the road fund licence for efficient cars is, quite
frankly, pathetic. Do they really believe that a saving
of £50 per annum is going to tempt someone to buy a more
efficient car when hundreds or even thousands of pounds
are lost in depreciation alone? – No!
Before
any major measures can be taken the public transport system
has got to be improved; the trains are overcrowded and
too infrequent, whilst the buses are unreliable and those
run by certain companies are a health hazard, as I'm sure
the cyclists out there are only too aware of. If money
is to be generated in order to improve the public services
then surely the easiest and fairest way is to put an extra
tax on fuel – the more you use the more you pay!
As Professor Nash points out, this also affects people
in the rural areas - and so it should, whilst they might
not be causing congestion their cars are still damaging
the atmosphere. This would seem fairer than charging a
blanket fee for using the trunk roads to enter our towns,
as with this system the people with the more efficient
cars pay the same as those with the big inefficient ones,
the result being that those who can afford to run the
larger cars can also afford to pay the toll and continue
to choke the cities.
So
what's the way forward? First of all public transport
has got to be improved. In the short term one could almost
argue that during the peak periods cars shouldn't be used
for short journeys within a conurbation and should only
be used for travelling from one conurbation to another.
This can be justified by saying that public transport
within cities and towns is much better than that travelling
longer distances. Looking further ahead the answer to
the problem of inner city transport would seem to lie
with better, cheaper public transport and small electric
cars; something similar to the Smart but being electric
it would be both cleaner and quieter. If funding was available
to develop the electric car then maybe it could also be
used for journeys longer than 50 miles, which seems to
be the limit at the moment.
See
the article on transport pricing
