A rubber stamp is not consulting

Furthermore the target to recycle 50 per cent of waste by 2010 will meet legal obligations.

There is also an obligation to consult local people about future waste strategy and in the case of York and North Yorkshire, this consisted of a questionnaire, colourful and nicely presented.

We were given to understand that this was to be sent to all households in the relevant area. However the figure of 82 per cent support for the council's proposal makes interesting reading. Having asked large numbers of people, we find that only a handful received the questionnaire.

Furthermore the consultation period covered Christmas time, with a deadline of January 2, which was a bank holiday. Of the people who did see the questionnaire, we found that even those who were well-informed about recycling and other environmental issues felt they did not really understand the implications of the proposed long-term management strategy. The same picture seems to have emerged in York.

The document that was sent out did not give any real alternative options for waste management. Consultation should consist of more than this rubber-stamping, which, in effect, asked "This is what we plan, do you like it or not?"

As it stands the strategy will tie the councils to a long-term arrangement to provide sufficient waste for the proposed centralised plant(s) which is likely to discourage future recycling initiatives. It flies in the face of the principle of the three Rs - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. It also contravenes the proximity principle of dealing with waste as near as possible to where it arises.

Another factor is that at all levels there is currently much talk of involving community groups in recycling initiatives and again the proposals put forward run contrary to this idea.

Replacing the current practice of householders separating waste to the proposed "co-mingled" collections will result in lower quality recycled products which will have little market value thus increasing the costs to us.

In addition to the details of the proposed strategy, the scope of the consultation must be questioned. We had no reply from our county councillor when we wrote to ask him: a) how many people were supposed to receive the consultation document?; b) how many people it was sent to?; c) how many replied?; d) why it was sent during a holiday period?; e) how much our councils spent on the procedure? These are important issues and as council tax payers we should all be given full answers.

If a questionnaire is sent to a limited number of residents to quote a response rate of 82 per cent is virtually meaningless. Public consultation becomes no more than lip service when it is reserved for the few.

This is too important an issue to be glossed over and then trumpeted by our representatives in this cavalier fashion.

Lindy Williams, Danny Powell

Prospect House,

Long Preston.

SIR - In relation to the cuts in our local bus network proposed by North Yorkshire County Council (and, no doubt, other councils), am I alone in looking back fondly to the supposedly bad old days, not so long ago, when much of our public transport was in public hands?

Then, the profits made from busy routes were used to cross-subsidise less well-used routes to keep them available for those who wanted or needed them, and to keep fares down.

With increased privatisation, that changed. The profits from busy routes now go into private pockets, while the other routes require ever-increasing subsidy from public funds, (i.e. local and national 'rates' or taxes of one sort or another), and/or higher fares.

The railway system, of course, suffers in the same way as the buses, so that the subsidy required to maintain the supposedly busier-than-ever rail network is now greater in real terms (i.e. allowing for inflation) than it ever was under British Rail. Again, profits from profitable routes flow into private hands, leaving the public purse (collected from everybody) to subsidise the rest of the system.

It all boils down, as ever, to the need for funding. Given the lack of input from what is now private profit, more must be found from the general public in the form of taxes (including council tax), or services will go.

The majority of us are in the lower range of the income pyramid, with a relatively few very high earners at the top end bringing the average up.

For most of us, therefore, public services represent a good return for a (relatively) low contribution. Only those with very high incomes benefit from paying the full economic price for a bus or train journey, (always assuming such people ever use public transport) or indeed any other service, because such a system would imply that they pay considerably less in taxes and thus win on balance.

The rest of us pay twice over - higher taxes and higher fares.

It would be interesting to know how much of the money we put into public transport is paid out as dividends to private shareholders. We can't even console ourselves with the knowledge that the dividends are benefiting non-profit-making, trust-operated occupational pension funds, since these, too, are becoming a thing of the past, with occupational pensions increasingly provided by private insurance companies.

In the end we make a choice - higher taxes or reduced transport and other public services. But we also need to ask ourselves who benefits most from reduced rates and taxes, and who suffers most from reduced or more expensive public services, including public transport.

D Newson,

Embsay.

SIR - In March 2000 Skipton Town Council wanted to close Bold Venture Playground, sell it for development, build a footbridge across the busy electrified Aire Valley railway line so the children would have to go from Keighley Road area to Burnside to play.

It would have cost a fortune and even if it had been safe, kids being territorial they would have been fighting each other - it just wouldn't have worked.

However, we objected strongly through the Craven Herald's letters page and in meetings with individual councillors and eventually the town council let us keep the playground.

In August 2002 we got a smashing set of equipment for the children to play on.

We accept that because we are only a small part of Skipton and there are not many children using the equipment at present but there are a few babies who will soon be big enough to use it. One must always remember that Keighley Road carries the busy railway, the heavy traffic on the main road and the open canal, so that without this play area the children have nowhere to play.

I have just read Skipton Town Council's proposed play area development plans drawn up by experts and they are recommending moving the equipment elsewhere.

Unfortunately for Keighley Road, all the councillors live in other areas of the town and we feel left out as far as representing our needs is concerned and yet we still have to pay the 26 per cent increase in council tax levied for the next financial year but could lose the only thing that Keighley Road could benefit from the town council's taxes.

There is no opting out of these taxes and I ask where will the Keighley Road children play? To my mind it isn't how many children are down there, it is a necessary amenity.

The report also says the site is generally abused. Well I go down there every day and I have seen no damage to the play equipment by the children since the new equipment was installed.

So please do not take this drastic step to this dangerous area of Skipton and deny the children their fun.

Stanley Phillips,

Keighley Road,

Skipton.

SIR - I was interested to read in the Craven Herald (March 3) that no fines had been collected last year for the dropping of litter in Craven.

I can only say that the council officers involved in monitoring this were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The residents of the Gargrave Road area are fed up with the amount of litter left by the pupils of local schools while waiting for the school buses.

The section between the newsagent's shop and Ermysted's Grammar School contains three litter bins, only about 20 metres apart, which never seem to be used, as most of the crisp packets, sweet wrappers and drink cans etc are to be found on the pavement!

The council should try patrolling between Ermysted's and the shop from 3-30pm to 4pm each day and they would collect hundreds of pounds in fines in a week.

I am sure that the heads of the schools involved have tried and failed to get the message across but perhaps the risk of financial penalty may be more effective.

Wendy Barnes,

Gainsborough Court,

Skipton.

SIR - There seems to be a fixation about "improving" some of Skipton's pleasant looking streets into fairly ugly highways developments, the latest being the speed bumps on Salisbury Street.

The highways authorities do seem to have a strange obsession with speed bumps.

Of course, speed bumps can only improve safety but where do you stop - and why pick out Salisbury Street? It is hardly the most dangerous street in town and even in my two litre car, it's almost impossible to race up the steep hill. Coming down, the likelihood of a car turning into the street acts as its own brake on speed.

If Salisbury Street is to have speed bumps, then why not Gargrave Road, Grassington Road, Brook Street, Rockwood Drive, Knaresborough Road, Keighley Road, Shortbank Road, Sackville Street? - I could go on and on.

Instead, at a cost of I reckon £10,000 this one pleasant, suburban street without a single recorded accident has been picked out of the blue for "treatment".

Only about 10 years ago Skipton had nice, pleasant roads with no unwarranted highway clutter. There were no traffic lights, no multi-coloured road surfaces, no signs, bollards, crazy paving, mounds of concrete.

Now it seems as though we can't get enough of it.

It is, of course, the year end. It seems to me that this is money being spent for the sake of it.

Mrs D Ferguson,

Gargrave Road,

Skipton.

SIR - One must question the validity and credibility of the national park when they allow the monstrous sports hall to be built at Threshfield. It refused permission for the rugby club on the same road, with 270 registered young players up to the age of 17, to have a rugby pitch with the only alteration to the landscape being two sets of rugby poles which could be removed during the summer months.

After 50 years in existence can anyone tell when they enter the national park, other than the signs on the roadside letting them know they have done so?

All the national park does is encourage more people into the area which in itself destroys what they are trying to protect.

Would it not be a good idea to have the next 50 years without the national park and spend the money on maintaining our roads?

John Verity,

Thruscross.

SIR - On Wednesday March 8 at 3pm I unfortunately parked on the town hall car park and completely forgot that we could not park there now with our three hourly resident's permit.

I displayed my time card and went to do my shopping. On return I found a fine under my windscreen at 4.15pm. Why could the attendant not put a warning not to do it again?

I went to the town hall to pay my fine of £35. I am a pensioner and this week we learned that for my wife and I there will be a rise annually of £227.24.

The council tax rise for my house is £103.93; the car park fine is £35, the renewal for a car park permit is £25, total £163.93 leaving just £63.31 to pay for all the other rises in the cost of living.

I wonder if the car park attendant went home that day singing what a wonderful day he'd had, especially if he reads this letter and can see that his weekly wage is probably as big as my annual rise.

K Rainford,

Brackenley Drive,

Embsay.

SIR - May I, through your newspaper, thank the very kind gentleman who stopped to change the flat tyre on my car on Tuesday near the Town Hall car park. He had seen my predicament as he drove past, then driven back round again to help me. Thank you so very much. Thanks also to the staff at Kwik-fit in Skipton, who so willingly mended my tyre though it was almost closing time.

P Chilton,

Gargrave.

SIR - Sunday March 12, approx 1.30pm. Snow is falling, there are strong winds.

I make a rare sighting of a flock of black redstarts, a chiefly migrant bird, on their way back to their nesting grounds.

The redstarts remain faithful to those nesting grounds, returning there every year.

Whinnygill Reservoir is on the flight path of many migrant birds. Shaped like a deep bowl, it acts as a feeding station with flies and insects in abundance for hungry migrants.

On Sunday I was lucky to be in the right spot at the right time when the flock of black redstarts descended on the back gardens of Jennygill Crescent.

They flitted and flew in and out of shrubs and privets feeding on the flies and insects hiding under the leaves and branches.

After about 10 minutes they flew away on their journey to their nesting ground, probably on the east coast.

If the weather had not been so bad, the birds would probably have fed up in the reservoir bowl.

Allan Mason,

Jennygill Crescent,

Skipton.

SIR - This week marks the Pensions Action Week. On April 10 the pension will rise by £2.20 a week to just £84.25.

The National Pensioners Convention calls upon the government to:

Raise the basic pension from £84.25 to at least £114 a week.

Restore the link between pensions and earnings, which was broken by the Tories in 1981.

Pay the full state pension equally to all men and women from April 2004.

The country can afford to pay everyone a decent pension, not least by using the surplus in the National Insurance fund, currently estimated at £34 billion and growing to £60 billion by 2010.

Our privatised energy and water companies, frequently foreign owned, might well note the above when they apply inflation busting increases, often into double figures.

Similarly our councils should take heed. No increases should be above inflation. Appropriate action taken jointly with councils throughout the country is necessary to force the government to liberate some of the cash so readily spent on illegal wars and weapons of mass destruction.

Brian Ormondroyd,

Brindley Court,

Skipton.

SIR - In the run-up to Pensions Day on 18th March it is time we recognised that the pensions system just isn't working: two million pensioners are living in poverty and many more are struggling to make ends meet.

Small increases in the state pension are nowhere near enough to cover the steep hikes in council tax, water and energy bills experienced in recent years.

We believe that radical reform of the pensions system is urgently needed. The basic state pension must be increased to a decent level, at least £109 per week, and maintain its value over time. Future generations must be protected from poverty in retirement. Women, carers and those on a low income deserve a much better deal.

Without decisive action, public faith in pensions will remain low and the value of the state pension will continue to decline.

On behalf of the Campaigns Partnership

Geraldine Moore,

Chief Officer,

Age Concern Lancashire.