Readers Letters

SIR - As president of Skipton Operatic Society, I am writing to register our consternation at the rise in Skipton Town Hall hire charges.

Last October we paid a bill of approximately £1,000 for the hire of the town hall for our show Anything Goes.

If these new charges materialise we would, for our next show, The Sound of Music, have a bill for £2,500, a figure we will be unable to fund from our present income. We cannot keep asking the people of Skipton and district to pay more, we would end up without audiences.

To keep our seat prices down and because of rising costs in scenery, costumes, publicity fees etc, we have done a great deal of pruning in these areas, only now to be faced with this.

It seems a shame that after 74 years, with two shows a year, using the only really suitable venue in town, and after all the pleasure given and all the talent we still have for the future, we are now looking at possible closure because of these hire costs.

What a pity that would be when we are looking forward to our 75th anniversary in 1999.

As it is, a show now costs in the region of £11,000 to put on: £12,500 would be the straw that broke the camel's back, especially as to break even these days is a luxury.

On Anything Goes, as successful a show as it was, we lost nearly £4,000. This fortunately was covered by a small grant from the Lotteries Commission.

For the sake of all amateur societies, charities, festivals etc, I hope that the council will have a change of heart. One definitely has the feeling that they do not wish the Town Hall to be used by the people that surely it is meant for.

I am writing on behalf of the committee of Skipton Operatic Society.

Mrs M Jackson,

President,

Skipton Operatic Society.

Looking elsewhere

SIR As president of the Craven Art Club, I am writing to you on behalf of our members to condemn the increase in hire charges for the Town Hall.

We have held our art show in the main hall for many years and felt that this was of interest to local people and visitors but we will find it very difficult to fund a show this year and are actively looking for a different venue for next year.

May we request a rethink of the hire charges as we feel that if not, many clubs and associations will have to move to a different hall to stage their annual events so depriving the centre of Skipton of some interesting and entertaining shows and sales.

Ruby Sedgwick,

Well House, Cononley.

Inundated

SIR - I write regarding the excessively high increases in charges for rents of Skipton Town Hall. As Conservative group leader on the council, I have been inundated with complaints about these charges and, indeed, I and my Conservative group councillors, objected to the proposals after the committee meetings.

The Liberal Democrats, who have imposed these charges as part of the Budget for 1998-99, have no idea or understanding of the damage the increases would do to the fundraising of the many organisations who work tirelessly on a voluntary basis for the people throughout Craven. They should have known better.

Now the Liberal Democrats, after causing so much ill feeling, have decided to put the Town Hall charges to the next meeting of the finance and property committee. Proof indeed that another blunder by the Lib Dems has been made.

The Liberal Democrats are the controlling group of Craven District Council. They have no idea of business and I am left wondering what will happen next.

Coun Peter Walbank,

The Sidings, Threshfield.

Editors note: The above letters were received before Wednesday nights meeting referred to above.

Compromise solution

SIR I believe I represent the feelings of the vast majority of people who live in the heart of Settle, in Church Street and Duke Street and in other areas nearby, and also of pedestrians (including visitors), especially the numerous elderly folk, when I draw attention to the noise and hazard that Settle people have to bear because of the continuous flow (barrage) of heavy goods vehicles, especially to and from the quarries, for six days every week from four o'clock each morning until late evening.

The problem facing lorry owners, which I can fully appreciate, is that the cost for extra fuel and time in making for the bypass by a route which avoids the town centre and built-up areas is not inconsiderable.

I write to suggst a compromise between the needs of drivers and residents, namely that fully loaded lorries, which make less noise and move more slowly, be permitted to continue to travel through the town and that empty lorries returning for another load (whcih rattle and bang and travel faster but use less fuel) be required to avoid the town centre and use the bypass.

The scheme would reduce the noise and danger problems by more than half - and such a compromise, willingly accepted, has a truly British ring to it.

Rev JH Richardson,

Longdale Avenue, Settle.

Keepers experience

SIR The march of the country people was their way of objecting to having their way of life taken away from them by all these new laws proposed by New Labour.

As hunting is one of the activities they are seeking to ban, I dont suppose any of their MPs will have ever seen any foxes earths in the spring, especially one which has been undetected for a long period, with all the half-eaten and decomposing bodies laid about due to the overkill by adult foxes.

Nor will any of them have walked any river or beck where mink have become well established and where they would have noticed the absence of any other wildlife, furred or feathered; the mink will have seen to their demise.

I wonder if any of these MPs knew that the conditions they are seeking today of no hunting existed during the last war, when most of the hunts were closed down and the majority of gamekeepers were in the forces.

The hunts and keepers were replaced by an army of government employed pest officers, yet at the end of the war there were more foxes than ever in the country and they had also filtered into the towns and cities where they have been ever since. As an example of what happens when foxes are not controlled, about this time in the Yorkshire Dales, lamb killing by foxes had become so bad that the local farmers formed the Dales Fox Extermination Fund and in the first three years 618 foxes were killed.

So I ask all these anti-hunting urbanites what would the life in the Dales, both wild and domestic, have been like if all that lot had been left to breed, averaging about five or six per vixen?

Another of the new laws which they are seeking to bring in and which will have an effect on the countryside is the access bill, although, if what we are told is true, they are only seeking unrestricted access to moorland. From my past experience as a moor keeper, the average town person looks upon heathland of any description as just so much waste ground. for that was the kind of answer we received when, in the past, we had reason to speak to anybody away from a footpath.

Furthermore, they dont seem to have knowledge of all the mineral rich plants that are growing there, all of them essential food for sheep, grouse and the berry bearing plants for the birds that live on the moor. To name a few: heather, moscrops, sheep sorrel, bilberry, crowberry, cranberry, cloud berry. But all these and more would be in danger of disappearing with a bad moorland fire.

All it takes is an exceptional dry summer and a cigarette end dropped on bare tinder dry peat, which will smoulder for an hour or more before bursting into flame. A fire under these exceptionally dry conditions travels swiftly overland but also goes deep down into the peat, killing both root and seed and the plants have gone for ever.

One of the worst of this type of fire that I ever saw, and I have seen a few over the years, was in the Trough of Bowland on both sides of the road about 50 years ago and which burned for over a fortnight.

When the fire was finally put out there were rocks above ground which, before the fire, had been under ground, an indication of how deep the fire had gone. If a fire of this magnitude could start on a moor where the public are kept to footpaths, the risk more than doubles if the public are allowed unrestricted access to any heather moors.

The heather moors of the north of England have been kept in the condition they are in today by good management and controlled burning. Where the public do have access is by footpath not being free to roam treading everything underfoot, both plant life and the eggs and young of ground nesting birds.

William Driver,

Gisburn Old Road, Blacko.

Little impact

SIR - I fear that your three correspondents are drawing quite the wrong conclusions from what they see about them (Craven Herald Letters, March 13).

There is plenty of research now which contradicts the view apparently held by them that all the ecological problems of the countryside should be laid at the walkers feet.

A 1996 report by the Commons Environment Committee states that there is little factual evidence to support the view that widespread permanent ecological damage is being caused by leisure use of the countryside.

Both a former national park head ranger and a very respected local expert on countryside matters support the view that walkers impact on an areas natural history is small and unlikely to cause irreversible damage.

With regard to the decline of some bird species which concerns your correspondents, the RSPB, of which I am a member, is of the opinion that the use of pesticides could be a key factor in the decline of many species, including skylark and lapwing. They suggest that climate change is the probable cause of the drop in golden plover populations and wet springs plus disease the cause of the decline of the red grouse. Walkers' boots are not implicated.

To address Mrs Rockcliffes concerns: Walkers realise that upland areas are farmed. Indeed concern has been expressed in walkers' periodicals for some time about the extent of damage being caused by over-grazing. The adverse effect of that over-grazing has resulted in far greater damage to heather moorland than walkers could possibly achieve.

The Three Peaks should not be regarded as a typical access area. The provision of large car parks, the publicity the area gets and the gross overuse of the mountains by large, organised, group walks make it a very special case unlikely to be repeated elsewhere.

CT Bell,

Ramblers Association, Craven Group,

Moorland Rise, Embsay.

Untidy graveyard

SIR - Yes indeed some parishioners were upset, and justly so, by the removal of Christmas wreaths from graves at Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

What we cannot understand is the sudden interest, when for the rest of the year the parish council made no attempt to tidy up. Indeed, our burial ground, which is council owned, is the most untidy one for miles around apart from those graves which are privately tended.

Dorothy Jobling,

Cragg Hill Road,

Horton-in-Ribblesdale.

Motorway truth

SIR Those Barlickers who were chucked out of Yorkshire (Craven Herald letters, March 13) should be told that the reason was entirely to do with expanding road transport and intended new motorways. No other reason is possible.

Lancastrians noticeably care nothing for their county and, even if they did, would face media walls of silence about exposing their complaints.

The result over the years is that apart from small Spaghetti Junction areas like at Birmingham, the Lancashire-Cheshire region is the most motorway polluted area of Europe and the boundary alterations the Barlickers complain of are to enable the pollution to expand across the Pennines through Craven.

Like extending the M65 into Colne and the death crash construction known as Broughton bypass on the A59, these motorways will have to be imposed a bit at a time by stealth.

By shifting boundaries and dumping lumps of Yorkshire into Lancashire, those making the decisions of where and how these motorways go will be virtually the blind leading the blind, located at Preston or elsewhere, deliberately anonymous and out of reach of those affected by their decisions.

What needs to be done is for that highway authority or whoever (as minutely reported in the Craven Herald of March 13) should be set up in Craven as perhaps Britains most motorway threatened district and it should be engineers dealing with transport itself who should be in charge, not spin doctor politicians and accountants, as quite the wrong people to be involved.

In the unlikely event anyone can discredit the above, please let us know - assuming it actually gets published and anyone bothers to read it.

RD Leakey,

Sutcliffe House, Settle.

Incorrect evidence

SIR In last weeks edition you printed a court report of a case involving a client of mine by the name of Neil Cox.

Let me say at the outset that the report was not inaccurate through any fault of your reporter or the newspaper.

The record which was read out to the court by the Crown Prosecutor was wrong in that reference was made to a sentence of imprisonment for an offence of indecent assault upon a female under the age of 16 years.

The offence in respect of which my client was sentenced to imprisonment was for an offence of indecent assault, but the victim was not a child nor under the age of 16 years.

The error which was within the list of previous convictions has painted a wholly distorted view of my clients original offence and I would be grateful if you would publish this letter in order to set the record straight.

John Mewies,

JP Mewies & Co,

Keighley Road, Skipton.

Call for rethink

SIR - My thanks to Coun Atkinson for explaining that the rationale behind Craven Council's decision to withdraw its subsidy on senior citizen railcards was based on principle not savings to the council (Craven Herald letters, March 13).

The saving of less than £7,000 is about 0.4 per cent of the sum raised from council tax by Craven and represents an increase in the band D of about 35p.

The decision to penalise rural pensioner households for whom rail is better than bus sits uneasily alongside the councils willingness to provide permits which subsidise unlimited stay car parking for Craven residents to the tune of £105 per annum, most of whom can be expected to be in employment (Craven District Council public notice, Craven Herald, March 13).

May I respectfully suggest that the council reconsiders its decision to deny several hundred senior citizen council tax payers a subsidy of £8.30 towards the cost of a rail card when their total council tax bill has increased by 22 per cent in four years, in common with other households.

Ian Woodburn,

Clapham Wood Hall,

Mewith, Bentham.

Choose with care

SIR Many parents and teachers will agree with the comments about the trauma of the selection system (Craven Herald letters, March 13).

It is for the local authority to respond to concerns about bureaucracy but in fairness it must be said that in these circumstances, some delay is inevitable. Whatever system is used, if parents choose an alternative school their children, who have waited a long time to hear the results of the 11 plus, must wait even longer to know which school they will be attending.

Decisions about the choice of school are never easy and can add to the unsettling effect of the selection procedure. The best way to find out whether a school is the right school for your child is to arrange a visit during a school day and see it in action.

Talk to the head, staff and pupils, watch what is going on, ask questions and make judgements about the atmosphere and ethos of the school.

Schools often have reputations that are many years out of date. Many parents have expressed confidence after visiting Aireville that it is the right school for their children and this has helped them and their children to come to terms with the results of the selection procedure.

By visiting us and making your own judgements, children can usually be spared the further delay and anxiety described by your correspondent.

David Croll,

Headmaster,

Aireville School, Skipton.

Tirade

SIR - I read with some amusement Mr Inghams comments (Craven Herald letters March 13). I am sorry if he feels that I lectured him or that I was in any way flippant.

Indeed, according to his own prodigious output he is such a multi-faceted talent as to be beyond reproach.

As for my tirade, my dictionary offers this definition: long vehement denunciation. The words pot, kettle and black come to mind.

A Bradley,

Chairman, Settle Cricket Club.

Lovely story

SIR - As an infrequent visitor to Skipton, I just managed to get hold of a copy of your newspaper last week and feel compelled to write to you about the article on the people of Settle and the children victims of the Chernobyl disaster.

It was a lovely story and I felt quite weepy after reading how the local people have rallied round to help bring a little love and perhaps longer life to these children.

In these days of newspapers dominated by rubbish on the latest inane antics of soap stars and smutty innuendo, this was just the sort of story which a newspaper can be proud of.

Mrs Audrey Hill,

Burton Stone Lane, York.

Janets sterling service

SIR - I would like to congratulate you on your article and photo last week concerning Janet Tomlinson stepping down from the local Candlelighters committee.

In this modern age of selfishness and me, me, me attitude, it amazes me how much time and effort someone could give to organising and arranging events for the benefit of others. Be it selling raffle tickets, arranging catering, parties or discos etc., she worked relentlessly with no grumbles and always cheerfully.

If all the people who have benefitted from her work at both Cookridge and North Craven could, I am sure they would all thank her and wish her well.

Whilst not taking anything away from the rest of the committee, past and present, no doubt they will agree that she has always been an inspiration to them. Well done.

Now perhaps her long suffering husband Brian will be seeing something more of her in the future, somehow I doubt it.

RC Welch,

Raines Road, Giggleswick.

Anger at housing plans

SIR - A meeting was held in Giggleswick Parish room earlier this month when the headmaster of Giggleswick School, Anthony Millard met with some members of the village to put before them the schools proposals for building 20 houses on the schools Lords field.

My husband and I did not attend because we felt that the issue was not a personal one and that the decision when it had to come, had to be taken objectively and justly by the proper authorities outside the village community.

The meeting, apart from generating the most tremendous anger against the school, must have been regarded a success by the headmaster. People, it seems, have been brainwashed into believing that the proposals are a fait accompli and that Giggleswick School are indeed succeeding in their campaign for the planning department of Craven District Council to accept their proposals and dropping the ones which have already been decided democratically and objectively in the best interests of the environment and of the whole community.

Craven District Council have made it plain, and some of us have the decision in copies of documents, that they have already decided upon the housing needs for this area.

The councils Local Plan does not include any house building "proposals" from Giggleswick School whether for Lord's field or anywhere else. I know I am not the only one in this community to beg the council to stand firm in its original decision.

If it buckles under the pressure being put upon it by powerful interests representing the school, then both the council and Giggleswick School can expect the most unwelcome publicity from well beyond the confines of this village.

Kathleen Kinder,

Station Road, Giggleswick.

Call for harmony

SIR - Giggleswick School has lodged an application for permission to build houses on their Lord's playing field to the dismay and consternation of the village.

At a recent public meeting the headmaster, Mr Millard, did say that an alternative site on Eshton's field could be considered, the sole purpose of the exercise being to raise funds for the construction of a new, all-weather floodlit hockey pitch.

I would remind all concerned that Craven District Council drew up a Local Plan (which is statutory) for the foreseeable future identifying land at Townhead, Settle, and potential conversions at Castleberg Hospital fulfilling the new build housing needs for the area.

Giggleswick School raised an objection to the plan which is now under consideration at the Department of the Environment and the inspector's decision is anticipated next month.

I retire as district councillor for Penyghent ward in May and would wish to see the continued harmony which has always been enjoyed with Giggleswick School and Giggleswick village.

Malcolm Riley,

Queen's Rock, Giggleswick.

Clear unpayable debt

SIR - Some of your readers will remember the excellent article by Canon Simon Hoare of a few weeks back where he highlighted the project Jubilee 2000.

Jubilee 2000 is based upon a charter by a large group of concerned people whose concern is to see the cancellation of the backlog of unpayable debts of the most impoverished nations. Put shortly the aim is a debt free start for a billion people at the millennium.

May I through your letters page stress two matters please. First to offer grateful thanks to the Craven Herald shop in the High Street and the Cornerstone Christian Bookshop in Newmarket Street for kindly agreeing to make available the petition. Anyone wishing to support Jubilee 2000 should please sign the petition between now and April 20.

The second matter is a planned representation at the Birmingham G8 Summit event when the leaders of the eight richest nations will be gathered. Jubilee 2000 supporters from all over the UK are also meeting in Birmingham to petition the world leaders to cancel international debt on May 16. The Leeds Church Institute has chartered a train to take supporters from this area to Birmingham. The day will include seminars, workshops, concerts, an ecumenical act of worship and the formation of a human chain where it is hoped that 100,000 people will form a human chain as a demonstration of support for the poorest people of the world.

The train leaves Leeds at 8am and gets back at around 8pm. The Leeds Church Institute tells me there is plenty of room on the train and anyone wishing to join should please book through: The Leeds Church Institute, Leeming House, Vicar Lane, Leeds, LS2 7JF or tel 0113 2454700. I will gladly supply any further information to anyone who wishes it - a stamped addressed envelope would be appreciated.

John Fidler,

Skipton Road, Embsay.

Car fumes pose threat

SIR - With reference to the 'fuming' letter by G Naylor (Craven Herald March 13). Does G Naylor drive a car?

Should we ask for compensation from car drivers for polluting the air that we breathe? For the deaths they cause? For taking our green pastures for roads and car parks? For robbing our children of safe play streets?

Why should non car drivers have to tolerate the inconsideration of having to breathe in fumes from car drivers? Does G Naylor think that cyclists wear protective breathing masks in case they get behind a car full of cigarette smokers?

Cigarette packets bear a warning 'Smoking can seriously damage your health. You don't truly expect the Government to enforce the labelling of car rears with a warning Car smoke can seriously kill you.

Those people on the no-smoking band wagon are backed whole heartedly by councils and government. I can fully understand why. If the band wagon was to stop, people would begin to think for themselves and start sticking no smoking stickers on car boots, and wouldn't that be a financial disaster for the Government. And utterly embarrassing for car drivers who tut tut cigarettes smokers, plus an instant education for teachers who roll up to school in cars and try to teach cigarette smoking is bad for your health.

Perhaps G Naylor can work this out - how can non cigarette smoking, well educated car drivers puff killer smoke/fumes out of car exhausts day in and day out and yet call themselves non smokers. Passive smoking is defined as the inhalation of other peoples fumes,

Mrs A Duggan,

Holmroyd Ave, Cross Hills.

Cancer workers

SIR - May I, through your column, bring to your readers attention the work of Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR).

YCR is an independent regional charity and not a branch of any national cancer charity. We raise money in Yorkshire to fund research into the cause and cure of cancer which today accounts for one in four deaths in this country.

Based in Harrogate, YCR, which prides itself on its Yorkshireness, is the most successful regional cancer research charity in the UK and raises around £4 million each year to fund research at each of the five original universities of Yorkshire: Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield and York. Work is also funded at the MRI Centre at Hull Royal Infirmary, the Royal Hallamshire and Weston Park Hospitals in Sheffield and the General Infirmary, St Jamess and Cookridge Hospitals in Leeds.

This is achieved through a network of over 60 local voluntary committees throughout the region, like the one here in Grassington. Much is also raised through personal donations, deeds of covenant, gift aid, donations in memoriam and legacies not forgetting the YCR shops in Halifax, Northallerton and Tadcaster and the many "special efforts made by members of the public.

The generosity of the people of Yorkshire is the backbone of our success, and on behalf of the YCR, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our local supporters in Grassington for their continued help for what truly is a great Yorkshire charity.

May I also mention that in our continuing efforts to raise money for cancer research, we are keen to welcome new volunteers to the charity as there is always plenty to be done. Anyone who has some spare time and who would like to help us raise money in 1998 should contact me, Vera Longthorne, chairman of the Grassington and District Committee on 01756 752952.

Vera Longthorne,

East View, Hebden.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.