etters to the Editor

SIR, - Your article on local tourism by Paul Langan, perpetuates the view that Ilkley is only a destination for day tourists.

Indeed, the three types of visitor defined by Councillor Anne Hawksworth (low spending hikers, low spending picnickers and high spending shoppers) fail to mention the best type of tourist of all - the weekend break or full week stayer.

This last group bring much needed business to local hotels, guest houses and self-catering cottages and apartments such as ours. They keep the town alive in the evening after the ice-cream lickers have long gone, by dining in local restaurants, visiting the pubs and buying tickets for the theatre and concerts.

Interestingly, a trawl through our records since 1998 found that the major (63 per cent) reason for staying here was what the experts call VFR - Visiting Friends and Relatives.

Often this was because parents or grandparents now live in a flat rather than a house in Ilkley and there isn't room for a visiting family. Conversely, older guests cited lack of room in family houses when visiting children and grandchildren (plus a desire to escape back to us at bath time!).

Other family and friends reasons to visit included weddings, Christenings and College reunions.

Of those staying here NOT visiting friends and relatives, the overwhelming places to visit (apart from Ilkley itself) were nearly all towards the Dales - Bolton Abbey, Embsay Railway, Skipton, Harrogate and the heart of the Dales.

Other popular places to visit whilst staying here included Bronte Country and Worth Valley Railway, East Riddlesden, Leeds (for shopping), York and Eureka! at Halifax. Only Harewood House, Harlow Carr and Harrogate were chosen in the Otley direction and not one visitor mentioned Otley itself as a tourist place they had visited!

What Ilkley needs is to regain its' place as "The Gateway to the Dales" as proudly shown on the old railway posters (and when the railway line was still open to the Dales). This title has been seized by Skipton, a town which doesn't seem to need much promotion.

There seems to be little benefit from a joint tourism strategy with Otley which, apart from the market and a branch of Argos, appears to offer little that Ilkley doesn't already have.

Tim Edwards

Westwood Lodge,

Ilkley Moor,

Wells Road,

Ilkley.

Parish precept

SIR, - Forget the game of ping-pong in your letters columns about whether Ilkley Parish Council precept should be £3.50 or whatever.

The real question is - when did Councillor Michael Gibbons,or any other member of the parish council, stand for election on a ticket that included the levying of a precept?

The reality is that the precept is an increase in Council Tax; and the parish council has done a U-turn by agreeing that the tax should be increased in that way.

Bradford Labour favours the precept because they believe that Ilkley people should pay out more, and get less, simply because we are 'privileged' to live in Ilkley. Now Bradford Conservatives show signs that they believe the same.

Councillor Gibbons lives in Otley, within Leeds MBC. We people in Ilkley and District, living within Bradford MBC, are entitled to be told when it was that Councillor Gibbons received a mandate from us to allow him to push through the levying of a precept on us.

Edwin Schirn

18 Victoria Grove,

Ilkley.

Editor's note - Councillor Gibbons has asked us to point out that because he lives outside the parish boundary of Ilkley, he pays the Otley precept on his annual Council Tax, incidentally one of the highest in Leeds. In addition to this, as he is chairman of the Ilkley Parish Council which introduced the precept on residents, in the spirit of fairness, Coun Gibbons handed over to the Ilkley Parish Clark a personal cheque for the equivalent amount paid by a resident of a Band H property in the town. Coun Gibbons's contribution has been added to the total revenue raised in Ilkley by the precept.

Bridge needed

Sir, - With reference to a letter you printed from Mr William Boocock on May 9 regarding the Stepping Stones at Burley-in-Wharfedale I would like to make the following points.

Due to the very poor state of the stones at the time and difficulties in getting the local authorities to do anything about it, a local campaign was organised to build a footbridge in the 1970s.

The authorities then agreed to repair the stones, and since the sole purpose of the Footbridge Campaign had been to provide a safe crossing of the River Wharfe at that point, the campaign was discontinued.

With hindsight, this has proved to be a very bad decision. A legal requirement was that the stones 'could only be restored to the level at dedication'. It was thought at the time that this would prove adequate - because the stones had been used for many years.

Unfortunately, the full effect of Fison's Mill closing was not appreciated by local people who had known the river up to then - but they certainly know now!

The stones have been repaired a few times since then but all to no avail. The reason is that since the mill closed all the water that used to be shunted around the weir to provide power for the mill now goes over the weir and the stones - causing much more rapid deterioration. Because of this constant wearing down, repairs last only a matter of months and whilst Mr Boocock's ideas are certainly very interesting, it is very doubtful if they would fare any better in practice.

The other factor is that the legal limitation regarding height would still apply. I understand that the original stones were a part of the weir design and were 'breakwater stones' which formed a 'stilling pond'. For the time the mill was taking water the stones would be proud of the river surface level for most of the time - hence people could cross safely. Those stones were certainly not designed to be well proud of the river at all times with a full flow.

Because of the points mentioned above the stepping stones are now completely useless for most of the year as a means of safely crossing the waters of the mercurial River Wharfe. There have been low water levels this year, but only the fit and foolhardy would have attempted to use those damaged, slippery and very dangerous stones.

The authorities must certainly be asked to repair them to the legal level to provide a crossing at low water on this right-of-way - but the only sensible, long-term solution is to have a footbridge which will provide YEAR-ROUND safe crossing for everyone, not just the very agile and those prepared to risk their lives.

Burley-in-Wharfedale is the only place of any size along the whole of the River Wharfe not to have a safe crossing. The present situation is an absolute and utter disgrace; Burley MUST have a footbridge - and soon - before someone else is injured or drowned.

C F Newton

Chairman,

Burley Bridge Association

23 Hall Drive,

Burley-in-Wharfedale.

PCs hit by PC

SIR, - As a former police constable who served in Otley. Ilkley, Settle and Skipton in the 1950s and 1960s I know that since about 1964 political correctness has eroded the standards of service that the man on the beat was trained to give.

The man on the beat, if you can still find one, was the backbone of the service. He still would be if his supervising officers were not subjected to political persuasion. Today, chief constables do not encourage their men to enforce the law of the land as enacted by Parliament, they are placemen acting upon the vagaries of Home Office morons, afraid for their pensions and privileges, having forgotten the basic definition of a police constable, which definition applies to chief constables also.

I am sure that Inspector Walker was well briefed for his foray into local politics, but I doubt whether he enjoyed it. I am equally sure that Chief Superintendent Sunderland is waiting with bated breath for calls from worried members of the public so that he can reassure them that all is well.

If Councillor Colin Powell has to go into print to emphasise his difficulties in obtaining even a vestige of police co-operation when he had a complaint to make, what chance the rest of us.

I am more cynical than our parish councillors. I have to say rubbish, Inspector, rubbish Chief Superintendent. You have been sold down the river by the politicians, more so than the rest of us, but you get well paid for mouthing platitudes whilst you wait for your pensions. The rest of us become more frustrated and more cynical, and the bobby on the beat wears out tyres rather than shoe leather, but never gets there until it is too late.

Victor M Bean

114, Skipton Road.

Ilkley.

Unique edition

SIR, - May I suggest that you produce a unique edition of your newspaper to celebrate the Golden Jubilee. This could easily be achieved by refusing, for that one issue, to publish any correspondence or so-called news items about:

1. Anyone who has bought a house on the A65 and then woken up shocked and horrified to find a road outside their windows.

2. Anyone who has bought a house at a notorious accident blackspot and would now like the taxpayer to move it a bit further away from their front door.

3. Anyone who has bought a house next to a mill, in an area called Low Mill, but who now thinks that the mill is a bit too much like a mill.

There surely can't be too many issues over the last 50 years without some of this repetitive rubbish in them.

JUDITH M THOMPSON

Haslemere,

Middleton, Ilkley.