WE trust that our local councillors read the Craven Herald.

They cannot have failed to have noticed a growing tide of disillusionment about the state of our streets. Scruffiness has become the rule not the exception.

It's not just in our columns. The first area forum, the chance for residents to tackle our administrators face to face, raised the poor state of cleaning streets in Settle.

Not so long ago the district was kept clean by an army of lengthsmen, fiercely proud of their stretch of roads. Now after a couple of decades of cut backs and "efficiencies" there is no pride. Why, as we reported last week, Craven cannot even be bothered to make a single entry into the Yorkshire in Bloom competition. Not a village, not a shop, not a business will make the effort (the Strange family's magnificent summer displays outside their home at Coniston Cold are an exception to this criticism).

Would we be willing to pay an extra fiver or so on our council tax bills to pay for clean streets, tidy yards, pristine graveyards and flowers not thistles on roundabouts? We think so.

Mind you, never let us forget that it is we, the general public, who throw the rubbish down in the first place. It is not just school children who seem to think that a paving stone fulfills a useful secondary role as a rubbish bin.

The lady who threw her half eaten sausage roll down a High Street ginnel this week was at least 60 years old.