Your support makes Skipton Gala a success

Thanks to your generous support, we were able once again to put on a successful procession gala display.

We would also like to thank everybody who lined the route of the procession to cheer on all those taking part and for joining us on the gala field. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as us.

By means of our annual gala, we aim to attract thousands of people, locals and visitors to Skipton to enjoy the colour and fun, both through the town and at Aireville Park, and experience the many delights of the town centre and the entertainment at the park too.

Each year local charities are encouraged to apply for funds from Skipton Charities Gala and all profits from the gala are us that purpose. We hope to conduct many more such events and continue to make our town a better place to live.

This event would not have been a success without the generous support you have provided us throughout. We deeply appreciate the willingness with which you have and continue to sponsor our efforts to make our town a healthier, happier place to live in.

We sincerely hope that this association will be maintained and that you will continue to support us in our future endeavours.

Geoff Dunn Chairman, Skipton Charities Gala Committee Westland Close Cross Hills Registering alarm Sir - Most people will have received a letter from the council electoral registration officer explaining the electoral register and the open register.

Most busy people will have read at the top that “your details are not on the open register. To be added to the open register please contact us”, at which point they will discard the letter.

However, in the sixth paragraph, it states “your name and address will be included in the open register unless you ask for them to be removed”.

This seems to be quite a cunning ruse to ensure that you will be pestered by TomDickandHarry .com offering you items that you don’t need.

Be warned!

Roderic Mather East Thornber Wigglesworth Skipton Voting security fears Sir - I received today a letter from my local electoral registration officer, Annette Moppett, which informed me that I had been automatically re-registered as a voter and that I was by default on the open register.

Given that this register can be bought by companies for all sorts of purposes I phoned Craven District Council and asked to be moved to the electoral register. A small matter but one which throws up two concerns.

First, although my letter was headed with a reference number peculiar to me alone I was at no time asked to give this – just my name and address.

Anybody with access to this letter, for example discarded as rubbish, could have been phoning to change my details and me none the wiser. In this instance it’s a relatively trivial matter, but it throws into question the whole security of the local voting register and possibly other electoral issues within Craven.

When I spoke to Miss Moppett she seemed to regard this possibility of minor electoral fraud as unimportant. I don’t.

It leads me to ask too why the default position with this new automatic re-registering is in the open register. Why should anyone have to go to the trouble of having to ask to remain anonymous to companies, credit agencies, or indeed anyone for any purpose?

Why not reverse the position and make the electoral register the default?

I’m put in mind of the old “tick this box if you do NOT wish to receive news of our special offers”, etc, where what was then the default has now become the exception. Why not with the electoral roll?

Allan Friswell Keighley Road Cowling Starting class on time Sir - The new 580 Kirkby Lonsdale Bus Service from Settle to Skipton will not get some pupils to school on time.

According to the timetable, the bus does not arrive in Gargrave until 08.41. My son will be attending Ermysted’s Grammar School, where he needs to be in his form room for 08.45.

Therefore he his going to be late for school every day by using this new bus service.

Surely it would make sense for such a service to enable all pupils to arrive at school in plenty of time?

Wendi Bunting Sharphaw View Gargrave Plea over purse theft Sir - Could the person who stole my purse in the British Heart Foundation shop in Skipton High Street last Friday please be kind enough to return the documents and pictures contained within to the police station in Otley Road, Skipton.

This includes a picture of my newly deceased husband, who was my best friend, and also a poem written by my deceased mother.

I appreciate that my money will now be spent, but the above items are of sentimental value and simply cannot be replaced.

There was also a silver necklace which belonged to my husband and myself which I should like to have back please.

Margie Golby Cross Street Skipton How to stop fly-tipping Sir - It’s a cliche, I know, but what on earth do we pay our council taxes for?

I refer to the piece ‘’Call for witnesses of fly-tipping’’ (Craven Herald, August 7). Surprisingly the article made no mention of the fact that anybody needing to dispose of rubble, plasterboard and other building waste at Skibeden tip now faces being charged. And it’s not cheap!

This is the latest wheeze from cash-strapped North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) to increase revenue; and one which I’m sure is doomed to failure because it dismantles a service that people found useful.

The same can also be said of the decision to charge for the brown bin service. NYCC would do well to remember that householders generally have had a tough time financially these past few years.

Sure, councils need to balance their books, but so do we. Sneaking in nasty little charges will cause resentment.

If NYCC insists on charging people for disposing of waste in the proper manner, it had better prepare for more fly-tipping. Not nice, but naive to expect anything else.

Ergo, if it wants to prevent rubbish being dumped inappropriately then drop this “dob in a fly-tipper” nonsense and stop charging people for doing what they’re supposed to do.

Caroline Hewison Regent Drive Skipton In the dark on power?

Sir - The Settle Hydro generator was not “expected to generate enough power to service 50 domestic dwellings”. It was expected, when operating, to generate 48 kW of power; which is enough for 20 Russell Hobbs kettles (power consumption: 2.4 kW each).

It was also expected, had things gone to plan, to generate over the course of a whole year the same amount of electrical energy as is used by 50 dwellings over a whole year (that’s about 200,000 kWh). And there any connection between generator and dwellings should be left; because the generator supplies energy at all times of day and night, whereas the dwellings demand energy in fits and starts at specific times of the waking day, and almost none during the sleeping night.

The Settle generator cannot produce “enough power to service” that demand from 50 dwellings.

Wonderfully misleading games can be played with whole-year data.

For example: a few kitchen taps left running for a year will deliver the same amount of water as was used fighting the fire at Windsor Castle.

Could it therefore be claimed that a few kitchen taps could “service” fire fighting at the Windsor conflagration? Clearly not; tap flow is inadequate. Firefighters needed water at a particular time and at a particular rate of delivery.

And so it is with electrical energy for dwellings. At Settle the rate of energy delivery (ie the power) is limited to 48 kW: so picture 20 kettles, not 50 whole dwellings.

To be fair, Settle Hydro is not alone in making oversimplified claims which fortuitously flatter the enterprise. The Craven Herald has carried many of them from spokespeople for schemes powered by wind and by methane gas.

Of course it’s vital that we harness less-polluting sources of energy; and of course it’s understandable that developments should be expressed in terms that lay people can grasp.

But, in seeking to inform, spokespeople walk a fine line that teeters into misleading others and inflating expectations, especially through keenness to garner public support.

If the mainstream power generating industry engineered and assessed their available electric power in the way that proponents of green generating do, we’d spend much of the winter shivering in the dark.

H J Hill Settle Chris gets the bird Sir - Chris Packham, the BBC Springwatch presenter, has lost his way with contradictory, confused and illogical pleas on Hen Harrier day.

Packham, president of the Hawk and Owl Trust and BTO, has exceptional credentials as a birder but his call for an outright ban on grouse shooting whilst acknowledging that “we need a economically sustainable rural landscape” is nothing short of bird-brained.

He seeks to stop the very conservation management that supports important wildlife and the local economy.

He contradicts himself by also calling for gamekeepers to be licensed – those same keepers that would have lost their jobs through his ban - and then goes on to say that land managers should be paid a subsidy for having birds of prey.

Who would pay for that, and why is it required when there is a well researched Defra-led conservation plan on the table for the recovery of the hen harrier?

He calls his campaign ‘audacious’, and we can only agree with his completely reckless disregard for the 3.5 times better chance that ground nesting birds on moorland with gamekeepers have of fledging their chicks thanks to predator control.

This results in up to five times more abundance in birds like lapwing, curlew and golden plover which are declining in numbers elsewhere.

Don’t chuck the baby out with the bathwater, Mr Packham.

Get behind the Joint Recovery Plan and lead the constructive way forward. Add your voice and sign here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/67527 Amanda Anderson Director, The Moorland Association Well Spring Barn Austwick Lancaster l See Page 27 History of homes Sir - “The History Pages” (Craven Herald, November 21, 2013) showed a 1945 street party held for children in Windsor Avenue and Gloucester Avenue, Silsden, loaned by Janet Lampkin (now Mrs Pawson).

I recently paid a visit to the Registry of Deeds, Wakefield, to research the history of the homes built on the two roads.

Some of them can be seen in the background of the photograph that was published.

The land on which the dwellings were built was purchased in 1943 by the Minister of Supply on behalf of His Majesty (King George VI) from the Rt Hon Horace Morton Woodhouse, Baron Terrington, CBE; and Vincent Hoare, trustees of Veteripont Estates Ltd, for the sum of £4,400.

What was termed “Married Quarters Estate” was subsequently built on Windsor Avenue, Gloucester Avenue and Dradishaw Road, Silsden.

In 1949 the land and the then existing tenancies were sold by the Minister of Supply, on behalf of the King, to Silsden Urban District Council for £16,000.

Incidentally, all the homes were originally built with flat roofs due to the wartime timber shortage.

M Toft (Mr) Windsor Avenue Silsden