Open up this part of our heritage

I could never understand why for the past 70 or more years it has been closed to the public with a big gate which was padlocked.

Whenever I passed I was always curious about what was behind that big wall which was too high to see over.

I therefore was most interested to read in the Craven Herald that Coun Robert Heseltine was at last doing something about opening it up to the public.

I hope he gets the support he needs to carry out this work. I certainly look forward to that day - surely it is part of the heritage of Skipton-in-Craven.

Alice Robinson,

Orchard Place, Rotherham.

SIR - I noted Mrs Kinder's reply to my letter about the church bells. Unfortunately she has totally missed the points I first made, namely:

1) That bells are no longer needed (for timekeeping) as before; that money raised could be far better used to create a fund for aid for the elderly, sick, disabled, unemployed in our own community. The historical use of bells is irrelevant today.

2) The excessive noise generated, which I and many other people object to. If, as Mrs Kinder implies, bells are connected with praise then I am amazed, as I find the noise mournful and clanging!

There is a church not far from here that spends its money and time on running a soup kitchen for local drug addicts; they have no church bells, but their priorities are right; as, like Jesus, they care for people not 'things.'

I know of a family whose guests left early due to the racket the bells made.

I should also point out that Mrs Kinder lives further away from the bells than we do and so will hear less of them in any case.

J Canaway,

Giggleswick

SIR - I was interested to read (Craven Herald June 25) about the survey carried out relating to the cost of a swim in the local authority owned pools of the Yorkshire Humberside area.

Fortunately the Settle area can benefit from lower charges than those quoted (national average £2.77, with Harrogate at £2.95 and Skipton joint third at £2.70). The charge at the Settle community-based Pool is £2.20 for adults, with juniors at £1.10 and seniors at £1.50. For multi-swim cards the result is even better at £1.88, £0.94 and £1.28 respectively.

The pool, generally perceived as one maintaining high standards, will represent even better value after the planned improvements to the disabled and changing facilities, installation of a hoist for the disabled and mosaic tiling of the pool surfaces are completed.

The costs of this could not be reasonably recovered from increased admission charges, so many kinds of fund-raising activities are planned to augment the grants which are being sought.

Since 1972 the pool has benefited from the generous support of local organisations and individuals - not least from its successful efforts in re-cycling waste paper and cardboard - and I am sure that will continue over the coming months.

TH Foxcroft,

Secretary, Settle Swimming Pool Committee,

Bankwell Close, Giggleswick

SIR - What is so amusing about all these little England flags is the vast number you see on French, German, Italian, Swedish etc cars.

It does seem a bit confused of these drivers to advertise their support of England football team whilst also advertising their support of foreign car industries.

Chris Wilcock,

Station Road, Long Preston.

SIR - I agree entirely with Steve Broadbent on the merits of a restored rail route between Skipton and Colne (Craven Herald, June 25).

Network Rail may agree but they believe that the costs would not be justified. In this instance the accountants rule, OK.

If the Skipton-East Lancs Rail Action Partnership wishes to push this matter forward it will have to put its money where its mouth is.

This sort of thing has been done recently in the case of the Wensleydale Railway.

This was a moribund branch partly dismantled. It has been taken over by a private company. Much of it has been reopened. Their intention is to restore, in stages, the whole route from Northallerton to Garsdale.

If they can make a go of it in country where there are more sheep than people, there is a much better case for the link to Colne.

It is far shorter. It gives access to a heavily populated district and Skipton with frequent electric trains to Leeds and Bradford.

There are numerous other examples where moribund or closed lines have been restored due to local initiative. Skipton-Colne could be another. Wensleydale has shown what can be done.

Rev Donald Bird,

Park Place, Hellifield.

SIR - Reading your article regarding local government changes reminds me of a comment the late Edwin Butt made around 1973, when local government was reorganised and he was clerk to Settle Rural District Council: "Mark my words, this is just the beginning, the fewer councils Whitehall has to deal with, the better they like it."

What an accurate prophesy and how our environment has deteriorated since officers like him with simple job titles disappeared.

CG Ellis,

The Old Vicarage, Langcliffe.

SIR - So, according to your reviewer at the Grassington Festival, Mr Bourne was inappropriately dressed for the opening concert.

Perhaps, to encourage all generations to enjoy classical music, we should all relax a little and not always wear the rather stuffy dinner jacket.

Maralyn Avison,

Wood Lane, Grassington.

SIR - I was amused, in an exasperated sort of way, to hear the A59 described as a dangerous road. This strip of tarmac is no more dangerous than any other.

However, it carries any number of appallingly dangerous drivers and it is hardly surprising that there are frequent serious accidents. It is amazing there are not more.

I use this road, and have seen it all. Overtaking in unsuitable places and cutting in afterwards; poor judgement of speed and distance; no signals; blasting on the horn to indicate "get out of my way"; harrassing the drivers of slower vehicles; aggression, arrogance, and bloody-mindedness in every form, fuelled by the desire to get there faster than the other chap at all costs.

It is a state of mind completely unacceptable on our increasingly crowded roads, where there is little margin for error.

What the answer is I don't know- but certainly a low speed limit, ruthlessly enforced, would be a step in the right direction.

Monica Sutcliffe,

Salisbury Street, Colne.

SIR - It was with great interest that I read two letters in this week's Craven Herald (June 25th) on the subject of the EU.

That from Mr JR Skelton, though I twice read it quite carefully, completely eluded my comprehension. I suggest he try reading Gore Vidal on the subject - it might clarify his thinking a little. However, the letter from David Curry MP represented to the undersigned non-supporter of his, a breath of clear, fresh logic which has been sadly missing these past few weeks.

The question that interests me about the UKIP is to wonder whence they go from here, as a "single issue" party.

It would be wrong to downplay their obvious success in the recent EU elections; they now send a significant number of MEPs to represent electorates all over this country. That is, if they choose to attend all the sessions and committees required of them, even Kilroy-Silk said that he would attend "whenever necessary", whatever that may mean.

But the European Parliament is not the forum where the British people will decide through their representatives what will be the nature of their future involvement in European politics. That will be decided at Westminster, with or without the benefit of a referendum.

So in order to influence that decision, the UKIP will need successfully to field candidates against the likes of Mr Curry in the next General Election.

To be able to do that they will need to formulate credible policies on more than the single issue which swept them to success this month. They will need to tell us how they stand on health, education, foreign policy, fiscal policy, transport, law and order, to name but the first most obvious areas which come to mind.

The pundits who analyse these things tell us that support for UKIP came from former supporters of all three main parties, with a majority from the Conservative party. Does this mean that UKIP's domestic and other policies will simply be rehashes of mainstream Conservative policies, thus presenting to the electorate an anti-EU Tory alternative? This would be the best news that Tony Blair might ever wish for.

Or will they attempt to cobble statements together which satisfy all their anti-European supporters from the full far-right to far-left spectrum of political thought. It should be very interesting to see whether they can avoid falling into the pit of oblivion which traditionally has been the fate of single issue parties within our Westminster system.

Bryn Glover,

The Corncrake, Cracoe

SIR - David Curry's letter (Craven Herald, June 25) provokes comment, but first, a short story:

In 1961 I and a group of Labour Party Young Socialists travelled across Europe to a university-run tented camp near Zadar, on the Adriatic coast, in what was then Yugoslavia.

On learning that some Soviet students were camping nearby, and curiosity getting the better of me, I strolled over to their tents where I was quickly made welcome.

At one point I referred to their country as communist. I was politely, but firmly, corrected: "Communist? No, friend; but we are working towards communism?"

Plainly, these young idealists were as deluded as I and so many others were at that time. The sorry truth is that the USSR and its client states were, in fact, full-blown state capitalist dictatorships, complete with all the trappings of state supremacy - police, secret and otherwise; armed forces; a class-loaded judiciary and its prisons, including slave-labour camps; a rigidly controlled press; etc. etc.

Added to all this was conclusive evidence of, so-called, Russian communism's true identity, a state banking system and an overarching wages system

Genuine communism (or socialism - both Marx and Engels used the words synonymously) describes a fully democratic moneyless, propertyless and stateless world society in which unfettered production of the means of life is organised by us all on a basis of free access.

I'm sure Mr Curry must agree that any shoplifting individual who had tried to sneak out of 'communist' Moscow's Gum store without paying would have received pretty short shrift.

Richard Cooper,

Caxton Garth, Threshfield.

SIR - Our MP, David Curry, in his letter to you (Craven Herald June 25), evinces a curious, extraordinary brand of logic.

He states that, since the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties are committed to remaining in the European Union, and their combined vote in the European elections greatly exceeded that for the United Kingdom Independence Party, the vast majority of voters must favour membership of the EU.

This is a disingenuous and false argument; many who are against the EU must have voted, out of loyalty, for the three main parties. It cannot be deduced from this that all, or even a majority, support membership of the EU.

On the contrary, vast and increasing numbers of people are opposed to our membership, but feel powerless to influence the course of events, precisely because of the official positions of the three main parties.

Under the first-past-the-post system, only the two major parties can win seats in proportion to the number of votes cast. Smaller and newer parties end up with few or none. But in the European elections they have a chance of gaining seats in proportion to the votes cast for them.

Despite their newness to the game, despite the slanderous allegations and smears aimed at them by some Eurofanatics: they were called "extremists", "xenophobes", and even "racists" - disgraceful, demeaning, and utterly untrue allegations from those who cannot deploy a reasoned argument - the UKIP gained as many seats as the Liberal Democrats.

Why are so many people opposed to the EU? Because they are perturbed by the EU's appetite for centralised power; its lack of accountability; its huge cost; its distribution of largesse to its commissioners and officials; its failure to get to grips with corruption; above all, the prevarication of EU enthusiasts like David Curry, who cannot admit that the EU is en-route to becoming a super state, indeed a super power, like the USA.

Despite their misgivings, many voters still cling to the parties they have voted for in the past but this is categorically not a vote for that expensive and insatiable white elephant, the EU.

Andrew D Phillips,

Park Green, Silsden.

SIR - Whilst congratulating the three Conservatives elected to represent Craven Ward on Bradford Council, and thanking those who voted for myself, I must declare my support for those deploring the real menace of the British National Party in this area.

As I watched their candidates at the count, all immaculately and uniformly groomed, my memory went back to pre-war days, when our leaders (eg Baldwin and Chamberlain) and many well-meaning people (including school boys like myself!) were led up the garden path by a similar show of smartness on the part of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, and their followers.

MP Ann Cryer speaks of being ashamed of those of her constituents who voted BNP. I share her feelings towards those voters, who profess to be motivated by a misguided sense of patriotism.

Latent racism showed up in the voting for Craven ward, where one candidate received a significantly low vote, although his credentials were at least as good as mine. But he has an Asian name!

The BNP can therefore rejoice. Not only has it gained thousands of converts during last year, but it has every prospect of gaining thousands more - that is if the three main parties fail to present a united approach in tackling this evil.

Hamish Hay,

Craven Avenue, Silsden.

SIR - I had the privilege of being at the start of a series of public inquiry hearings to sort out and presumably establish the difference between farmers' land, public land and the national park.

Why they were doing it could be for a number of reasons, one of which goes back to the 1960s and 70s when a few of us very successfully, for the first time ever world-wide, put a stop to motorways being extended further north across the Dales, beyond Keighley and Blackburn.

Although the subject of the particular inquiry I attended was a farm located on hills well clear of intended motorway corridors, other farms are not, particularly those in the upper Ribble valley, near Horton.

All this has started again since the Bingley bypass almost secretly opened in last December's darkness and the London-Scottish traffic is already piling in on the Skipton and Settle bypasses on the A65 up to Carlisle, where land for an extended M1 motorway extension to Scotland has already been blighted.

Bob Leakey,

Sutcliffe House, Giggleswick.