Call for honesty on changes to exams

Under the present system, everyone sits a practice exam, and then sits two real exams. Selection is based on the best test scores from those two real exams. Many children take these exams in their own schools during the school day. In these ways, the system for boys already tries hard to create a fair ‘level playing field’.

The proposals: 1. Remove the chance to sit a practice exam 2. Remove the second real exam 3. Move the exam away from the children’s own schools and on to a weekend Removing the practice exam will increase the advantage bought by expensive private tutoring. Removing the second chance real exam means a single ‘off day’ can change the course of a child’s life. This is the opposite of creating a ‘level playing field’; it will only serve to keep bright but underprivileged children out of grammar school.

This reverses the intent of the 11-plus which (being based on reasoning rather than learned information) tries to assess the native ability of the child, irrespective of background.

Finally, it seems strange that opening a school especially on an extra day for a centralised exam is cheaper than running the exams as part of a regular school day.

Maybe if the council looked more carefully at the costs and potential savings of all aspects of the process, they could find a way to save some money without reducing the fairness of the system.

If they can’t, please can they at least be honest with us? These changes may reduce their budget, but in doing so they will increase the stress and cost for all those who go through the system, while making it less fair. This is money saving, not improvement.

Dr David Robinson Moorview Way Skipton Luncheon club plea Sir - Glusburn Luncheon Club was due to finish yesterday after being run by volunteers for the last 35 years. Over this time hundreds of elderly residents in the Cross Hills area have benefitted from being able to meet each other and enjoy a hot meal on a weekly basis.

The volunteer staff have given hundreds of hours of their time and energy into making this happen and have done a wonderful job. Glusburn Institute trustees have also given their support by installing a full catering standard kitchen and by subsidising the rent of the room. Glusburn and Cross Hills Parish Council have given some grants over the years to help to keep the service going, but North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) have not responded to requests for direct funding in past years and it doesn’t currently fulfil the criteria for Craven District Council Community Grants, although the club did receive a grant of £1,000 in 2012.

The first problem came when NYCC changed the rules on subsidising the travel costs. This lost eight elderly residents who decided that paying for transport on top of the cost of the meal was too much. This meant that numbers dropped from 30-plus to 24, which meant that the Luncheon Club committee could not cover the overheads.

Secondly, although the committee have tried their best over the last two years to recruit more volunteer cooks, they have found it impossible. Now with great regret they feel they have no alternative but to give up and close the service down.

As the trustees of Glusburn Community and Arts Centre, we are extremely concerned that the area will be losing a vital service which helps to combat isolation and loneliness among older people.

At the request of the parish council we carried out a survey of the current users. All say they come for the social benefits, some say they would not otherwise have a hot meal.

£5 a meal seems to be the maximum that could be charged before many would cease to come because of the cost, this is partly because some are paying for a taxi or other transport on top of the cost of the meal. Research tells us that to provide the service on a purely commercial basis £7.50 would have to be a minimum charge.

By giving publicity through your newspaper to this situation, we hope either that volunteers will come forward to help or that someone would be interested in sponsoring the Luncheon Club. £2,000 a year would enable us to employ someone to run it as a social enterprise.

If anyone can support this in any way please contact ola@gicac.org.uk or 01535 630223 /01535 634097.

It seems so sad when our country has the sixth largest economy in the world that we can’t find the money to run such a service.

Gill Birks Chair of Trustees Glusburn Community and Arts Centre Walker Close Glusburn Roads to confusion?

Sir - Highways planning for a massive and complex metropolis such as Skipton must be a real challenge.

Hours must be spent in council meetings bringing great thinkers together to ensure that stupid decisions aren’t made such as closing Brewery Lane at the same time as Jerry Croft.

Or maybe not.

Amanda Ackroyd The Magpie Skipton Library views vital Sir - It has been heartening to follow the recent correspondence and articles in your columns valuing our local library and the services it presently provides. We are also completing the county council’s questionnaire about future library provision in Skipton.

The consultation documents and questionnaire place heavy emphasis on the use of volunteers to provide services to the public. We accept that aspects of the lending library could be supported by volunteers.

However, we hold that it is the responsibility of North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) to carefully plan the changes so that online services as well as the valuable and well-used research and reference libraries are staffed by librarians. There is already heavy demand for volunteers to run and sustain Skipton’s many societies and organisations.

We are concerned that the county council does not make clear, in the documents so far released, what happens to our library service if insufficient volunteers are available at any time. We feel strongly that it would be much easier to respond to the questionnaire if detailed proposals had been formulated by them.

As the existing group of Friends of Skipton Library (FOSL), we have been assured by the county council of “being included in further more specific consultations about local library services” and are ready to respond directly to the county council when more detailed proposals are available.

We urge your readers, their relatives and friends, and all users of our library to complete the questionnaire before February 8, 2015, so that they can contribute to the plans for the future of our library .The questionnaire has to be completed online by accessing NYCC Library Consultation Questionnaire. Your readers can go to the library to complete it and get help to do so if needed!

Ginny Wilkinson Chairperson, Friends of Skipton Library Cough up, please Sir – There has rightly been a flurry of indignant protests in the Craven Herald’s letters column regarding North Yorkshire County Council’s disgraceful decision to dispense with the services of qualified librarians in the county’s 43 public libraries and replace them with unpaid volunteers.

NYCC claims that its regressive move is justified by the need to save money. Codswallop!

There are massive savings to be made within NYCC’s non-elected elite without depriving its taxpayers of the valued services of qualified librarians.

Consider, for example, the inflated salaries enjoyed by NYCC’s five most senior officers.

Topping the pile is Richard Flinton, the council’s chief executive, who collars a cool £170,000 annually excluding expenses and perks. Not bad for someone running a business with an assured annual income and zero competitors. Money for old rope, some might say.

Moreover, the onerous responsibilities of Mr Flinton’s role apparently require the assistance of no fewer than four ‘corporate directors’ who collectively collar an annual pittance of nearly half a million pounds – £485,192 to be exact.

But let’s return to the money-saving challenge facing NYCC.

Why is it that the axe always falls on those at the bottom of the corporate hierarchy (ie our valued librarians)? Perhaps Mr Flinton will volunteer a reduction in his own salary of, say, £70,000 in order to reinstate the jobs of the qualified librarians who have rendered such sterling service to North Yorkshire’s taxpayers over the years.

Were Mr Flinton to make this unlikely sacrifice, he would then have to eke out a meagre existence on an annual income of £100,000 plus expenses – a sacrifice that would earn him brownie-points from taxpayers and librarians alike.

Maybe Mr Flinton’s elite cadre of ‘corporate directors’ will also donate a few thousand pounds from their munificent salaries in order to retain the professional librarians so rightly valued by the county’s taxpayers?

And pigs might fly!

(The exact remuneration figures of NYCC’s highest-earning executives can be viewed by visiting http://www.northyorks.gov.uk/media/11531/Salaries---senior-officials/pdf/Open_data_2014.pdf) Peter Scott-Smith The Green Long Preston Editor’s note: The figures on the website Mr Scott-Smith refers to above actually show the ‘pay banding’ that the county council’s most senior officers are in. So, for example, Mr Flinton is shown as being in a pay band which runs from a lower figure of £155,000 to a higher figure of £170,000.

Safety ‘made worse’ Sir - Following the article by Lesley Tate (Craven Herald, November 27) concerning the proposed housing development at Madge Bank, Cononley, I write to add further weight to the overwhelming opposition to this planned development by local residents.

I would comment, especially, on the inexplicable turnaround by North Yorkshire highways from their previous recommendation to refuse the plans on unacceptability with regard to highway safety. They have now withdrawn this decision due to changes to access the planned site at Madge Bank. Yet, clearly there has been little change from the original plans for access to the site and those that have, in my opinion, have made the access situation worse in terms of highway safety – not safer.

Attention is drawn to the fact that the access road width has not changed and is still 4.5 metres. This, despite the case officer for highways stating in his submission to Craven District planning, that: “The access shall be formed… to give a minimum carriageway width of 5.5 metres…’.

It’s worth noting here that the Department of Environment Development Control Advice Note 15 on ‘Vehicular Access Standards’ 10.1 states: “The minimum width of the access shall be 6.0 metres for a two-way access...”

The priority road width (Crosshills Road) at the access to the site is still at 5.0 metres. But, this is still a reduction and narrowing of the present priority road width of more than 5.9 metres and is at the exact spot where a well known ‘pinch-point’ and chicane occur in the priority road – meaning a narrowing at this point will make road safety potentially worse, not better.

Presently, there is ‘Give Way’ signage and a priority system in place at this ‘pinch-point’ which helps road safety, by slowing traffic from one direction. However, the amended plans, show this signage removed and replaced by a ‘speed table’ at this point, which is a recipe for disaster at the narrowest point in the road – especially when traffic would be turning right into the site at this very same narrowest point .

The change to the plans that NorthYorkshire highways seem happy about is reducing the ‘x’ visibility distance required at the exit point of the access road – from 2.4 metres to 2.0 metres, so that the ‘y’ visibility distances required are achieved, where they were not previously.

But, this has only been achieved by narrowing the priority road and, I believe, still does not meet the required visibility distances. According to the Transport Advice Portal issued by the Department for Transport and the Institution of Highways and Transportation, Section 3.6.3(ii) clearly states: “An access road serving, between six and 15 dwellings will require a vision splay minor road ‘x’ distance of 3.5 metres.”

The proposed development at Madge Bank is initially for 10 dwellings. If this ‘x’ distance is used instead, then the safe ‘y’ visibility distances will not be achieved. Therefore, these amended proposals should be rejected.

Ralph Quigley Crosshills Road Cononley Planning pitfalls Sir - So the residents of Cononley (Letters, December 4) are coming to grips with the reality that many of us across Craven have had to deal with for years. Namely that Craven District Council and North Yorkshire County Council, when faced with a determined developer, are not prepared to stick to their own guidelines in planning applications, and will approve schemes that mar Conservation Areas, are far too dense, destroy trees, do not provide adequately for cars and parking, and will increase traffic congestion and danger.

The councils do this in fear of challenge and costs of planning appeals, and because Craven has no Local Plan, but it is still inexcusable.

But, beware, Cononley and other residents. Once the planning application is determined by members at committee, and the formal documents have been issued with the very detailed conditions that bind the developer, you will probably find that these written and legally binding words have no real power.

A developer can ignore both the spirit and letter of the conditions, and drive a coach and horses (or is it a stream of large wagons?) through them – either through management ineptitude or deliberate intent (or both).

All that effort in the well-intended, carefully-worded clauses and small print, all those hours of work and discussion that you thought would protect the residents’ wellbeing and the community’s interests, are all in vain. The prospect of legal action seems no disincentive.

This has happened, and continues to happen, at the Granville Street site in Skipton, and, I am sure, at other sites across Craven. So take heed, Craven residents, I say, but don’t trust the documents to protect you.

All of this creates a huge amount of work at this site for Craven DC’s planning enforcement team. I do applaud their constant efforts to control things, but planning conditions have no power if developers are either unwilling to comply, or are incapable of complying.

Jane Houlton Granville Street Skipton Helping the hospice Sir - I would like to thank Calvin Dow, of the Castle Inn, Skipton, for hosting a coffee and cake morning, which raised a wonderful £225 for Manorlands Hospice. His lovely, friendly young staff baked delicious cakes and were a joy to be with - they certainly are a credit to Mr Dow and help to make the Castle the best pub in Yorkshire.

Also many thanks to John Eaton, of Craven College, who, although extremely busy, arranged for his young students to make a superb collection of cakes and pastries for us.

Lastly special thanks to everyone who came along, enjoyed a lovely atmosphere and supported the hospice.

June Robinson Chairman, Manorlands Support Group Conistone Fury over dog fouling Sir - Let me say, first off, that I think dog owners are great (used to be one myself), it is to the sub-human scum who do not pick up their dog foul that I write this letter ... and let me tell you, I do think you are genuine scum.

Why do you morons own dogs? To me, you people, are no better than animals. If you think leaving the stuff on pavements (where people walk and children play) is fine, then I would hate to see the state of your homes. Pick it up. The council provide bins.

One day recently I dodged your foul on: l Victoria Road, outside the Victoria Mews houses l School Lane bridge lThe path between School Lane and West Craven Drive ... and I stood in some scumbag’s dog mess (and ruined a perfectly good pair of Karimoor shoes) on the old railway line behind the Punchbowl. I was on a simple day out with my family, my children were picking twigs to decorate for Christmas, my children were playing in the leaves. But selfish scum, horrible people leave their mess in the leaves. I hate you people. I really do.

Replace my Karimoors. But most importantly, for all our sakes and for the sakes of all our children’s health... clean your mess up.

Anthony Rishton Grove Street Earby Practical investment Sir- Now that the Chancellor has discovered that investment in the north of England is a good idea it would be magnificent if we could get a firm commitment to invest in the re-establishment of the rail line from Skipton to Colne. Then we could have direct trains to Manchester, avoiding travelling on crowded trains to Leeds.

The government seeks to promote northern powerhouses in Manchester and Leeds - we need to see Skipton, Craven and East Lancashire connect with them.

There can’t be many rail projects in the country that could achieve more with less investment. Billions of pounds have been promised for new northern infrastructure; by comparison the Skipton-Colne line has been estimated to cost only £100 million.

This line would cut road congestion, improve work and study opportunities and the local tourist industry, and give a boost to the deprived East Lancashire area.

A relatively small amount of investment like this could achieve real improvements quickly. Billions are promised for HS2 and HS3 will not happen for years to come. Some immediate investment now into a highly practical local scheme would produce quick and substantial results.

The Skipton and East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership (www.selrap.org.uk) has been studying the costs and benefits for years - it is time we acted on their ideas.

Andy Brown Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for Skipton and Ripon Main Street Cononley