In last week’s paper the collapse of the church wall by Castle Hill was attributed to flooding of a nearby pond.

Undoubtedly this has played its part but surely the size and number of the vehicles using Church Lane has also had an effect.

We all know that the vibration caused by heavy vehicles causes damage to old buildings – and how long had the wall that has now collapsed been standing without movement?

One resident has measured the inclination of the wall for the last few years and its rate of tilt has undoubtedly accelerated in direct relationship with the size and number of HGVs, some of whom are lost Polish drivers and some who are regular users from local companies who should use more appropriate routes.

This also relates to the Mirfield 25 site. In the original application the would-be developers claimed that there would be no significant increase in local traffic from the desecration they wished to wreak upon Mirfield Moor.

Then, when they changed the plans, they told us that the building of an old folk’s village would not add to the pressure on local health services. Neither statement is credible but was used to justify this unwanted development.

To quote a wiser man than me there are lies, damned lies and statistics and the practice of not viewing things in an holistic manner contributes to the problems we have.

Each and every development in Mirfield has been seen as a stand-alone event and each and every one will have had traffic flow, infrastructure and environmental evaluations supplied by the developers, all of which will show that the impact is negligible.

Try telling that to the drivers of the traffic backed up on Sunnybank, Church Lane, North Road, or Stocks Bank Road in and out of Mirfield every single working day. Similarly the residents of the Blake Hall estate, whose houses were flooded in the recent past, will be reassured to know that the volume of the water that runs through the single major culvert from Roberttown down to the Calder is unaffected significantly by any single development. The cumulative effect of the developments is never taken into account.

Now they assure us that an old folk’s village will not pressurise the health services – you must be joking.

If we do not stand up and fight Mirfield 25, we will find in a year or so that we cannot get an appointment at the doctors at all, Blake Hall will be flooded again and the local traffic will be just that bit worse.

Tim Conolly

Primrose Lane

Mirfield