Does the person who thinks fireworks are OK on November 5 (The Gazette, November 5) because it is their child's birthday, think that by the same token it would be right to have fireworks every night of the year, because after all it is someone's birthday every day of the year?
I think not!
Bonfire night is an English festival best left to organised and properly supervised events and the sooner fireworks are banned from general sale the better.
I have two grandchildren presently living in Canada and they did not mind in the least that bonfire night is not celebrated over there.
D Shepherd
Kipling Drive
Blackpool

n Once again nothing has been done to
protect old people and poor animals, who have had to put up with idiots using
fireworks irresponsibly during the past few weeks.
Every year around bonfire night all these shops spring up crammed full of fireworks on sale to just about anybody.
Fireworks to the general public should be made illegal and only official organised
bonfire or fireworks events allowed.
This would be welcomed by our emergency services who are stretched enough without to cope with all the extra strain imposed on them. My dog was shaking in terror while
outside it sounded like a war zone.
Enough is enough and it's time something is done to stop this madness.
William Pennington
Rosefinch Way, Blackpool
n I agree with Dennis Cavanagh (The Gazette, November ) that fireworks should be banned.
My dog is bothered by the noise and goes and lies in the corner, shaking and distressed. Shops that sell them before and after
November 5 should lose the right to sell them at all.
David Houghton
Richmond Road, St Annes

n I am a local coach driver and Bonfire Night brought out the hooligans. I stopped at traffic lights and when they changed and I was moving off a youth threw a firework at my coach.
My side window was open and luckily I saw it coming and as it entered the coach I knocked it back with my hand, it then went off! If that had got in the coach the
consequences could have been extremely
serious.
Name and address supplied


Time to resore original roundabout
I have used the Bispham roundabout regularly for many years without any problems whatsoever.
Traffic going northwards along Devonshire Road kept to the left-hand lane to go straight ahead and the right-hand lane was for Bispham Village.
The filter into Red Bank Road was quite sufficient and does not warrant a
dedicated lane on the
approach to the roundabout under the new scheme.
A further problem arises for southbound traffic and traffic coming out of
Bispham Village.
I have been "cut up" on at least six occasions by drivers finding themselves in the Bispham Road lane but
really intending to go up
Devonshire Road.
The lanes in this section are too narrow and some areas are restricted by white lines which seem to serve no useful purpose.
These roundabout changes, instead of making an improvement to traffic flow, have created a
hazardous situation and it needs reverting to the
original layout without delay.
Harry Haysham
The Knowle
Bispham



Election turnout puts residents to shame
In my early days as TUC
secretary here in the 1980s, in an election in Blackpool either 1983 or 1987, there was an abysmally low turn out.
I wrote a report to TUC and The Gazette highlighting what had just happened in South Africa when, for the first time, non-white people were allowed to vote.
I mentioned the pictures showing them outside polling stations in tremendous heat for over eight hours waiting to vote.
We have now just witnessed the American people waiting from 5am to 7pm, across the nation, with different time zones, queuing for hours to do similar,
with a 62.5 per cent turnout.
What a damming indictment this is to the 62 per cent of people in Blackpool who did not bother to turn out to vote in the May 2007 election here.
Of the 38 per cent who did turn out it is clear not all of them voted Tory because there are still 12 Labour councillors.
Failure to vote by such an enormous majority has resulted in the Tories in Blackpool being allowed to sneek in through the back door.
As John McCain has just
graciously said all politicians
accept the majority of people's wishes.
But when they don't turn out to vote what kind of a mandate does that give the people who take power?
At least those abstainers have got what they deserve here,
already closures of services and no doubt more to come.
Michael Carr
TUC Silver Medal of Congress holder
Ansdell Road, Blackpool