Readers enter renaissance debate

What I do know is that there is a lot of hot air, claim, sheer fantasy and scaremongering being put about which seems designed to strangle any plans at birth.

I found myself most in agreement with the views of the Civic Society in the Craven Herald. At the exhibition there was no indication of what the buildings will look like and how high they will be and without any indication of same, the council is asking for a blank cheque.

For example, I have heard that the multi-storey will be anything from six to 15 storeys high. The council should clear this up.

I am slightly amused by the self appointed Voice of Skipton. I was at the Town Hall meeting when its protagonists were elected - by about 100 people. They now appear to be claiming that made them democratic representatives mandated to make decisions about the future of Skipton. Funny, I thought I voted for councillors in elections to do that.

Their survey is remarkably loaded. 'Do you want the library moved?' they asked. The council could ask 'Do you want a better, bigger, more modern library with more books and facilities than the cramped, unpleasant building we now have' and get the opposite result. Both questions do not paint the full picture.

Frances Sample's letters echoes a much held view: because in the 1960s a monstrosity was put up at 9 High Street we should never, ever build anything again. The people who made that decision are probably long dead and I do believe that modern architects and planners have learned their lesson.

Most people I talk to are not anti developing the town centre, just very cautious. No market town can be described as "pretty" and "traditional" if vast swathes of land are covered in tarmac and brightly coloured bits of metal.

But until the council can give the public more information on its plans, there is little wonder that rumour and disinformation is taking over the debate.

Mr S Dobson,

Keighley Road, Skipton

SIR - I visited the Lock, Stock and Barrel to see the proposals for myself and was extremely disappointed.

I questioned the Town Centre Manager about the parking at Coach Street that shows it to be short stay and visitor and asked where the staff of the 'one stop shop' council offices were going to park? The answer was elsewhere, when pressed as to where, he suddenly remembered he had another meeting.

As the council invariably puts itself first, the majority of the parking at Coach Street will be lost to the public and commandeered by them.

The multi-storey car park for Cavendish Street is probably a good idea if the more than 1,500 extra car movements can be managed successfully because at the moment turning right at either end of Cavendish Street is extremely dangerous.

As for the Town Hall car park, with new retail shops including another food store, they must be building for the charity sector. Whatever anyone's view, cars are here to stay and the owners will go wherever they can park them and where they can afford to pay to park.

R Lister,

Low Lane, Grassington

SIR - At the heart of the Skipton Renaissance Project is the desire to maintain and enhance a bustling dynamic market town.

Worryingly, we are assured that consultation is taking place with professional urban designers. Yet this effusive collective determination of the local authority to economically regenerate the town does not seem to have applied over the last decade to the outlying once bustling industrial villages of Craven.

Quite the reverse: there would appear to have been a deliberate policy to exclude industrial or commercial activity in these villages which has led to most of the old industrial properties being demolished and redeveloped as houses to accommodate not local demand, but ironically those escaping the repercussions of the projects undertaken by the professional visionary urban "planners" whose plans have not turned out as planned!

No one could realistically expect the structures of the old weaving mills and commercial buildings from Craven's industrial villages to meet the low maintenance needs of modern commerce but retaining the industrial use status of the properties for re-development of smaller, low maintenance sheds and offices would at least have offered some opportunity for commercial activity of which there seems to be evidence of some demand regardless of the authorities claim to the contrary

At the same time, commercial activity would retain some semblance of a thriving working community of which the associated social benefits may be considerable.

Anthony Smith,

Colne Road, Glusburn

SIR: Skipton Renaissance - where has the Vision gone?

Why is Craven District Council steadfastly ignoring the Vision that was developed following the public consultations last year?

This vision included clear plans for a cultural centre which would be a new building behind the town hall and would form the hub of a new vibrant town centre.

It would enable us to show off our area's excellent orchestras and brass bands as well as being able to stage concerts for young people and host conferences. Skipton needs to be a destination where visitors want to spend a whole weekend or longer, not just two hours which seems to be about the average now.

Instead of this, we only have proposals to tinker with the current layout of the town hall, and absolutely no innovative thinking.

The whole Renaissance seems to have been overtaken by plans to move the council offices into the town centre, the reason for which eludes most people. What does this have to do with economic regeneration?

So, please, can we revisit the original aims and objectives of the Renaissance project and do something positive to regenerate our town for the benefit of this and future generations?

Caroline Woodhead,

Chairman, Settle Orchestra,

Beech Close, Gargrave.

SIR - The Renaissance plans for Skipton are a welcome change from the usual moan about lack of parking space.

As a motorist I think we have been unfairly privileged at the expense of pedestrians.

On a working day half the ground space in central Skipton is taken up by parked cars. People on foot have been squeezed on the narrow pavements and forced to take risks dodging traffic to get across the roads.

Of course, we don't want to stop cars coming to Skipton, so why not have park and ride schemes like York and other cities? Surely they are much cheaper than underground car parks, would reduce clogging our streets with traffic and would make pedestrianised streets more feasible.

Mr G Hoyle,

Burnside Crescent, Skipton.

SIR - The recent GVA Grimley presentation and consultation exercise indicates that the Skipton Renaissance Vision "to maintain and enhance Skipton as a bustling, high quality and dynamic market town" is to be achieved by selling off local residents' assets primarily to fund new offices for Craven District Council.

Surely, the whole process of a Skipton Renaissance now must be revisited? We, in the Skipton and Dales Green Party would like any future forum or planning process to consider its outcomes using the following principles:

1 Sustainable development providing local solutions to meet local people's needs. For local businesses this means real support, rather than being sidelined by powerful national competitors. For example: regular farmers' markets to support the local farming community and provide a viable alternative to supermarket shopping.

2 An integrated transport system, making it easier to live in and visit Skipton without a car, and the car less intrusive for residents and visitors. For example: residents-only parking, park and ride facilities, and a pedestrianised High Street, served by shuttle buses from the park and ride, via the rail station. Encouraging greater future car use will not prove a re-birth for Skipton, rather it will condemn our town to a slow death by suffocation.

3 Low cost housing for sale and rent available for those who wish to work and live in Skipton, (not cheap second or commuter homes) built to the highest standards of energy efficiency.

4 An inspirational Renaissance, making residents proud to be part of a community that shows what can be achieved by the people of Skipton, for the people of Skipton.

Skipton doesn't need to become a poor man's Leeds with incongruous 'mixed use development' nor replace serviceable public buildings in a splurge of privately financed commercial initiatives that benefit planners, consultants, developers and major retailers before local people.

In conclusion, imagine a town that is a joy to visit and a pleasure to work and live in. Consider how these green principles, which put the interests of local people before those of big business or bureaucracy, can make it a reality for Skipton.

Chris Beazley,

Skipton & the Dales Green Party,

12 Whinfield Court,

Skipton

SIR - I read with great relief last week that Craven District Council had decided to postpone its vote on the rebuilding of Skipton until next autumn. The mills of CDC always grind more slowly than those of God but for once this delay could be good news.

I have had, unfortunately, some dealings with the council in recent years, for I once produced a staff magazine for its long suffering employees, and perhaps know more than most outsiders the mind-numbing processes it undergoes before coming to any decisions - or, more likely, avoiding any decision.

In personal dealings as a council tax-payer, my experiences have ranged from the laughable to the contemptible.

One of the leading backers of the grandiose rebuilding projects is Coun Paul English, with whom I had an acrimonious meeting when he was on Skipton Town Council. The subject - don't laugh - was rabbits, which were destroying Aireville Park and its adjoining allotments, one of which was mine.

The town council was our landlord but the challenge of getting rid of a few bunnies was such that Coun English and his colleagues threw up their hands in despair and handed the allotments over to the district council. The rabbits are still there.

On a much more serious note, a group of neighbours in this area have been trying for 18 months to silence a single youth who is making life a misery for half a dozen families by playing loud rap music in the early hours of the morning.

The police say this is not their business - it's up to the environmental health department which, incidentally, is based 50 yards away from me in Granville Street. But they only work office hours, Monday to Friday, and, surprise, surprise, the youth involved makes little noise at that time. The department made a half-hearted attempt to tackle the problem a year ago: it still goes on.

Then, of course, we have this obsession with Skipton's traffic problem, vocalised by Coun Michael Doyle, who put forward the ridiculous scheme that traffic should only be allowed in and out of town via Keighley Road - and as a result, got voted off the district council.

The fact is that, by any big town or city standards, Skipton does not have a traffic problem: a delay of perhaps five minutes in the "rush hour" is the worst most of us can expect. What Skipton does have is a parking problem and the solution to that, under present proposals: build on existing car parks!

Then there are these grandiose building projects because, they say, the Granville Street offices are no longer adequate. That may because of the bloated CDC bureaucracy but I have spent much time in those offices and I can assure readers that they are little short of luxurious.

Let's hope the delayed vote will now be delayed ... indefinitely.

John Sheard,

Gladstone Street, Skipton

SIR - So, the people of Skipton have spoken, and in no uncertain terms, about the council's renaissance proposals for the centre of Skipton.

According to the Voice of Skipton poll, feelings were mixed about the multi-storey car park, whilst well over 80 per cent of those polled objected to the building of new council offices on Coach Street and the removal of the library from the High Street. So where do we go from here? Let me make some suggestions:-

Multi-storey car park: there is a sizeable demand for a decked car park, providing it is sensitively built. One consultant at the exhibition suggested seven storeys, none of which go underground! Maybe a "two down three up" scenario could be considered, the overall height of the building going no higher than Christ Church tower.

New council building on Coach Street: However much this was disguised as a "service centre", the vast majority of people polled thought it was nothing but a set of council offices with the addition of the library and benefits offices etc. being the only reason to suggest placing it on prime development land in the centre of the town.

It reinforces the view that the council seeks to feather its own nest, above all other priorities for the town. If a "drop-in centre" must be placed centrally, then so be it - an office in the Town Hall should suffice. I firmly believe that the vast majority of council officers do not need to be so centrally based and there are more than enough brown field sites within Craven District.

The railway station at Hellifield, suggested recently in this paper, or a number of sites on Snaygill Estate are two areas that merit closer inspection.

Library moving from the High Street to the Coach Street service centre: The reason for the high number of objections here is simple: Skipton library was the first Carnegie library built in England. It is therefore a building of great historical importance, and a beautiful building to boot.

Yes, the space allocated to the library has been reduced in size and it lacks disabled access to the reference library. My solution: instead of Craven College taking over the library, as we are led to believe is clearly on the cards, why doesn't the library take over Craven College High Street site?

The poll clearly shows: we want a library on our High Street far more than we want a college! Isn't there enough space on the Aireville Campus for the college, or cannot other buildings be used for them instead - the old St Stephen's school building on Gargrave Road springs immediately to mind.

Perhaps Mr Doyle, who chairs the Renaissance team and has also voiced his objection to this idea, can use his North Yorkshire connections to investigate these possibilities.

The council has often enough stated in the newspaper that no developments would be entered into without extensive public consultation. My worry is that the exhibition at the Lock Stock and Barrel was presented as a fait accompli. I hope that the poll results will prompt them to hold to their words and to come up with alternative proposals to the people of the town that they are obliged to serve.

Mark Verity,

Raikes Road, Skipton

SIR - Once Skipton needed a cattle market, then a decent water supply and now car parking for its prosperity.

An exhibition, which was difficult to see, and facts and figures which were withheld from the public were presented recently. Before they were taken from me, I did make my own notes on the following figures on car parking:

Now - Coach Street 420; Cavendish Street 189; Town Hall 432; Keighley Road 37; Co-Op 78; Town Hall (not for public) 78.

Future - Coach Street 75; Cavendish Street 798; Town Hall 291; JGC (they could not tell me what this was) 80.

A reasonable cost for a five storey Cavendish Street car park would be £7,000 per space plus removal of dangerous chemicals and you can work out the cost of that.

There must be clarity between pay parking and private parking. Supermarkets and shopping centres need substantial extra parking spaces. A reduction in the town hall car park whilst building more shops does not add up.

The coaches using the Town Hall car park have not been considered.

More and more offices are moving out and into the country for parking. Visitors and tourists, as well as shoppers, require more spaces, so does the Skipton Building Society.

Cavendish Street is the least used and with Tesco, Focus and Morrison nearby and, perhaps with 100, or even 200 more cars under Dewhurst's Mill when it is redeveloped, that area could become a real mess.

Granville Street council offices could be expanded, as could the car parking there. Better still, reduce the staff levels and lower the rates!

The Town Hall car park recently emerged as the second most expensive for coaches in all England. Tourists are important and they need to see the High Street to get their bearings for the church and castle. Closing the entrance from the High Street to the town hall car park would be a mistake.

Every car park exit should have one way only out to the bypass so there is no need to go back through the middle of town.

I am afraid that the lunatics are running the asylum.

Norman Simpson,

Calton Lodge, Airton.p