Let cars park on the Bailey

No! Stick to the basics like smartening up the town and encouraging people to live, work and visit here and forget schemes for which funding will never be available.

Meanwhile, it is obvious that Skipton Town Council is determined to do just the opposite with its obsession for the removal of car parking.

The main thrust of their Renaissance project appears to be to build on existing car parks and now you report that they also object to Skipton Building Society creating additional car parking spaces on their Bailey site for staff who otherwise take up parking spaces in town. (Incidentally, it would be chaos on Saturdays if the Building Society did not donate the use of their car park to help ease the town car parks which are overflowing.)

Hopefully Craven District Council will be in the real world when they consider the planning application.

Everyone who is realistic knows that what is needed is to keep existing car parks and additionally have a proper Park & Ride scheme.

Making signs to existing car parks more clear so that strangers find them more easily would help traffic flow (eg there is no sign going up High Street for the main car park, the only sign going down High Street has turned and now points up The Bailey and is, in any case, obscured by flowers from a hanging basket, and the sign at the entrance to Coach Street car park is so old and faded that it is of little use.

As for the High Street debate, the last costly forum was only 12 months ago when again the public "were consulted" in specially erected marquees.

That Forum concluded that it was impossible to close High Street to traffic as it was the only route from north to south. When I took this up with John Thompson & Partners, they knew nothing of the earlier forum and, through lack of local knowledge, did not even realise that it was the only north/south route through the town.

Furthermore, I am amused to read of the grandoise schemes proposed by John Thompson & Partners for land and properties (such as Belle Vue Mills and the Auction Mart) which are in private ownership. Is the council going to raise the money to buy these sites?

Unless common sense is allowed to prevail, Skipton residents will wake up one day to find the shops, banks and offices empty because customers cannot get there.

They will also find successful businesses like Skipton Building Society have gone because the culture seems to be to stifle rather than encourage local success. The town is presently prosperous, bustling and busy - let's keep it that way.

Richard Mashiter,

Southfield Road, Addingham.

SIR - I was disappointed to read in last Friday's Craven Herald that Skipton Town Council's planning committee has raised objections to the proposed 78 additional car parking spaces at the Bailey.

As a local resident living near to the town centre, we are inundated with daily parkers and also shoppers leaving their cars outside people's property, making it impossible for residents to park.

We are not the only area in Skipton to have this problem by any means. It would seem very short-sighted if this application were to be refused as there are going to be a lot more people trying to park in and around this very busy town.

It is time Skipton council did something constructive towards solving the horrendous parking situation in Skipton.

I am not only a Skipton resident, I also work for the building society and can appreciate both sides. I think they should be applauded for trying to do something positive about a problem that can only get worse.

What about all the Saturday and Bank Holiday parking the building society allows in its grounds, which not only allows more visitors to park in the town bringing money into local businesses? It also makes a lot of money for local charities.

Mrs A Bullock,

Primrose Hill,

Skipton.

SIR - In the Herald of August 8 you carried an item about lorries in Settle and detail plans to remove this menace from the centre of the town.

This will go no way to alleviate the problem in other places along the A65 and A682. This will only be solved when stone traffic is put back on the railway, where it belongs.

The Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) tell us it will cost many millions to put the sidings back at Horton. True, but they have been happy to rebuild the line to Grassington for stone traffic.

Maybe folk up the Dale have more clout than we have in North Craven.

Of course there will be a cost in putting back a siding, but the traffic will not be carried free. There will be revenue from stone traffic. To this must be added the reduction in social cost in removing heavy lorries from country roads.

Sadly, with a railway run by accountants, this cost cannot be assessed.

I fear nothing will be done on this score so long as our railways are run by such a totally inept body as the SRA.

As an example of this we have the sorry tale of the wrong sort of heat which may buckle the (wrong sort of) rails. The Times of the same date as your item carries a story of a 60-minute journey lasting 18 hours because of the heat.

I would like to know why it is that railways in Europe and North America can run satisfactorily during much hotter summers than ours without this eternal bleat.

I suspect that much incompetence hides behind the plea of safety.

I fear we are in for a bad time. Soon it will be autumn with the wrong sort of leaves followed by the wrong sort of snow in winter. We have had railways with us for over 150 years. It is incredible that SRA prefer to carry on as if this accumulated experience had never happened.

The railways are run for the benefit of the public. It is reasonable to suggest that if they cannot do the job, then they should make way for those who can.

Rev Donald Bird,

Park Place, Hellifield.

SIR - "Lorry solution could be close" (Craven Herald, August 8). Let me be clear: this is in no way a criticism of the Craven Herald's report under the above heading.

It is obviously a straightforward report based on the facts given. The problem lies with the facts.

The "early morning" problem is only a part of the HGV problem and any supposed solution is just a partial solution, and probably a sop, but the implication is otherwise.

Later we read that a "possible" scheme will go before this dubiously "representative" partnership, "within the next few weeks". Details of the solution cannot be agreed until it is agreed by the group, who presumably, but to my mind questionably, are supposed to represent the general public.

We then read that "the proposal seems to have the full agreement of the hauliers and quarry owners". Again no mention of the general public.

Then the downside, formally put forward as bright prospects for the future.

"Hopes for a possible rail link appear to be years away"......it could be four years before the signaling infrastructure could be provided", etc. etc.

The lorry problem has now been raised by very many reputable people within the community who have no economic axe to grind in terms of property prices etc., though they are undoubtedly going to fall as Settle becomes a scruffy market town in the midst of beautiful countryside.

When they raise the problem openly they are abused by a minority with a doubtful economic case.

A public meeting is hijacked by macho lorry interests. A retired local clergyman is abused in the foulest language in a public place.

This minority is aggressively supporting the Hanson case. Do Hanson, as a reputable public company, really want to ally themselves with these kind of people? Do the decent lorry drivers of Settle, who I am sure are in the majority, really wish to do the same?

The only solution lies in a totally independent study by people with absolutely no axe to grind, neither local council officials, employers or employees.

I am confident of the solution, though at my age I will not be here to see the despoliation of Settle should no sensible, positive action be taken.

Well over a century ago a Norwegian playwright called Ibsen wrote a play about it all. It was called, "An Enemy of The People".

John Finch,

Settle.

SIR - As a resident of Thornton Street who hangs washing on my line, I would like to pass a message on to Mr Painter through a little poem I have written for him:

"Please Mr Painter, give us all a break. For the sake of drying washing, is it worth all this heartache?

We are not the mafiosi, just a group of young houswives. Who live in the backstreets of Skipton, and would like to get on with our lives

The dryers are too expensive, and our backyards are too small. So please let us keep our washing lines, let's play bat and ball

Just look outside your door one day, and see how nice it looks. Clothes drying naturally, please replace the hooks

It's an age old tradition, drying washing in the street. Our mothers did, our grannies too, please take off the heat.

Let's try some community spirit, or is it totally dead? Please Mr Painter, think about what you've read!"

Caroline Whitaker,

Thornton Street, Skipton.

SIR - I would like to draw your attention to the state of the Mill Bridge garden and canal towpath.

1 The willow tree needs pruning as the branches are overhanging the footpath.

2 The sett-paving down to the beck, which is part of the feature, is overgrown with grass and weeds.

3 At the rear of the seat, the garden is overgrown and full of weeds.

4 At the end of the beck wall nearest the bridge, weeds are waist high - in other words everything in the garden is in a shocking state.

What the Civic Society can do about it I wouldn't know. It was a joint undertaking with the Craven District Council and Skipton Civic Society.

The state of the towpath is beyond belief. People are walking their dogs with no intention of cleaning up after them - and this is supposed to be a tourist attraction!

F Riley,

Ex Highways Inspector with Craven District Council and North Yorkshire County Council,

Water Street,

Skipton.

SIR - Christine Hodson's letter (Craven Herald August 8) about the proposed closure of the Physical Rehabilitation Centre should be pinned up over every desk of every planner, manager and cost efficiency expert, and in triplicate for the Craven and Harrogate Primary Care Trust.

Users of the unit at Skipton General Hospital - and at any time anyone of us could join them - are virtually unanimous in praise of the skill and care provided by this unit and more importantly, they feel that it is in this particular unit in Skipton General Hospital that their full needs were properly addressed.

"They" are stroke victims, accident victims, multiple sclerosis patients and many others, and they are all too often poorly consulted in the overall planning for the community.

The Primary Care Trust has to be compelled by weight of public opinion to hold open and honest consultation around their plans for closing this unit in Skipton.

That means we all have to take an interest, doesn't it?

Mrs Raye Whitten,

Leys Close,

Carleton.

SIR - Might one point out to Wendy Milner (Letters July 25) that in England and Wales there is a total of around 120,000 miles of public rights of way, of which only some 5,000 miles carry vehicular rights?

It is therefore possible for those disliking recreational motor vehicles to avoid them quite easily without depriving the vehicle users of any of the routes they may legally use.

If a proportionate amount of public funds were used to keep the vehicular green roads in repair, compared with the huge sums spent on footpath repair, the question of damage would not occur.

And speaking as a former occasional green roads rider with friends still able to enjoy the countryside in their own way, we do not wish to "rev up and roar". How dare the anti-motor lobby assume they have sole rights to countryside appreciation?

Margery Price,

Yeadon House,

Sutton.

SIR - You will no doubt have received a sizeable post regarding the ducks on the canal appearing all female.

This is of course in appearance only. After the breeding season the colourful ducks change their attire to a female like plumage and this is known as the "eclipse" plumage.

This occurs in summer when the females (ducks) are busy rearing their ducklings.

An interesting fact was discovered by the late Charles Tunnicliffe, the celebrated bird artist and illustrator.

As the drake loses his bright plumage and acquires the more subdued feathering of the female, the bird appears to become hormonely sexually neutral and, for the remaining duration of the eclipse period, remains as a female. His male status returns on completion of the full breeding dress. Once more a mallard drake!

At the same time during this summer moult, the female, busy rearing her brood, loses her primary flight feathers and is therefore unable to fly.

The regrowth of the primary feathers and return of the ability to fly coincides with the fledging of her ducklings and their ability also to fly for the first time.

The whole family is now through the summer moult together and nature resumes normality and, hopefully, the confusion is over for another year.

David Binns,

Boundary Avenue,

Sutton-in-Craven.

SIR - My sympathies go with the gentleman who had a little too much in his wheelie bin.

As recently reported in the Herald, the operatives left a couple of bags for him to put in the following week rather than take a binful plus a bag.

Doesn't this amount to the same amount of rubbish anyway.

On the same subject, my problem seems to be that I don't have enough rubbish, my bin doesn't get emptied, the order of the day being that the man stretches himself into the bin to retrieve the bag or two therein, places this in my neighbour's bin and then doesn't have the actual task of having to put mine onto the van.

Left at the bottom of the bin are all the odds and sods (usually the fag packets and sweet wrappers from our street that doesn't see a sweeper) that I cannot possibly retrieve.

Anybody got a solution? Should I generate more rubbish or offer the use of my bin to others?

It was good to see success reported recently with Skipton Car Radio announcing their 25 years in business. My goodness, is that how long they've been defacing the town with those dreadful yellow posters?!

R Wright,

Otley Street,

Skipton.