WE feel sorry for you, dear reader. No, honest, we really do! For there are not one, not two, not even three but four major consultation exercises each with public meetings going on at present.

Another one has just finished and a fifth is just around the corner. On top of that, those of us living in or near Skipton and Settle have had a whole raft of consultation days and evenings as part of the renaissance process.

There's a real danger of consultation fatigue setting in.

And yet we cannot really decry democracy in action. All have been for important matters and at least the public has had the opportunity to have its say.

Yet we cannot help thinking that for most people, after a hard day's work, the sheer amount of consultation is just overwhelming. There is also a cynical view that the whole consultation exercise is merely going through the motions; that decisions have been made in advance; that whatever the public think, what really matters is how the financial numbers stack up.

There is a real danger that these public meetings are hijacked by the same small coterie of activists, often pushing their own narrow interest.

Even so, we would urge readers to pay close and particular attention to the plans for primary health care (as outlined on page 14).

Meanwhile the consultation process begins again on Sunday at the fire station (2pm) with an open meeting on the fire element of your council tax. It then switches to Wednesday in Bentham (12.30pm) when the health changes are discussed. The following day in Skipton the county council consults on its budget plans (Aireville School at 6pm). As the county council will take by far the biggest slice of your council tax, it's worth seeing what they plan to spend it on. There's breathing space of almost a fortnight before, on Wednesday the 28th, the attention switches to the police authority (Skipton Town Hall, 7pm).

To come are three more meetings on the hospital plans; when March comes it's time for the councils' area forums and then get ready for consultation on Airedale Hospital achieving foundation status. And what's the betting that there's a new traffic consultation exercise for us all to grapple with somewhere round the corner?