Bus passes can bring much wider benefits

By UK law, bus operators are required to accept senior passes, and it is illegal to accept even a token charge, but well-off pensioners like Mr Rigby don’t have to apply for a pass nor use that pass when catching a bus. He has a choice.

If he believes the law should be changed he should write to his MP, but I suspect Julian Smith will be more impressed by the independent economic research that shows that every £1 spent on concessions delivers nearly £3 to the rural economy, let alone the massive savings to National Health and social services budgets.

If the law (or North Yorkshire County Council’s interpretation of that the law) does change, the Sunday DalesBus network, now carrying over 50,000 passenger journeys per annum, will continue by charging everyone for their journeys, but some of our services will have to be cut or curtailed and many of our most vulnerable passengers will no longer be able to travel with us.

This will reduce the public benefit we are able to deliver at what is, ultimately, trivial cost to the UK taxpayer. The £1 billion per year the Government pays for English bus concessions costs about the same as the Chancellor’s recently announced reduction in house purchase Stamp Duty for the better off. Which offers the best value for money?

Rather than insulting older people who have paid taxes all their working live as ‘freeloaders’, Mr Rigby should realise that many such people give their time as volunteers for local charities in Craven, which if they had to find expensive bus fares they could not afford to do.

Around a third of Sunday DalesBus users actually pay full fares, but an appeal to regular pass users in 2014 raised over £5,000 in donations, money now part-funding the popular Saturday X75 bus service to Harrogate that passes Mr Rigby’s door.

If he wants to campaign against wasting taxpayers’ money, he should start not with a much-valued benefit for less affluent older people in Craven, but the reckless bankers who recently had to be rescued with hundreds of billions of public funds, or the huge multinational corporations who avoid paying all but minimal taxes.

Colin Speakman Grove Road Ilkley Deserving respect Sir - In reply to Mr Rigby’s letter regarding free travel may I say how offensive I found his remarks about often empty buses carrying freeloading pensioners.

Perhaps Mr Rigby might refrain from calling senior citizens ‘freeloaders’ when they are entitled to use their bus pass, particularly in an area where transport is restricted due to various factors.

Perhaps the so called ‘freeloaders’ who deserve our respect, not cheap jibes, have helped in maintaining so called often empty buses for Mr Rigby by using their bus passes.

Perhaps a new is law is required making it an offence to make offensive remarks against particular groups of people such as ‘freeloaders’.

Mr G Salisbury Millholme Rise Embsay It’s not freeloading Sir - Peter Rigby (Letters, December 18) refers to people who use their bus passes derogatively as ‘freeloaders’.

They are getting nothing free. All users pay towards their fare indirectly, in tax. Many users have paid over their lives very large amounts of tax. If people making use of a public subsidy are ‘freeloaders’ then so is Mr Rigby. Perhaps he avoids public toilets, libraries, museums, parks, car parks, trains, etc.

Perhaps he averts his eyes from street signs and street lights and would spurn a fuel allowance. I am sure that with his opinions on those who get a benefit from the state that they are not paying for directly at point and time of use, then Mr Rigby objects to bins being collected for free, never uses the NHS and avoids driving on publicly-maintained roads.

But however hard he tries to avoid using services he has not paid for directly, then Mr Rigby is still in his own lights a ‘freeloader’, because even if he just stays at home he cannot avoid benefitting from policing, EU food subsidies and a hundred other publicly funded services.

The cost per person of subsidising bus use is lower than the public cost every time someone gets an NHS flu jab or catches a rush-hour train in London. Lower than the cost to the NHS and social services of dealing with elderly people who become sick through isolation, inactivity and poor diet when they can’t get out and about.

The Secretary of State said in 2009 that bus passes “are intended to address the social exclusion of older and eligible disabled people in England by providing improved access to local amenities”. The policy was successful and the current problems with buses cannot be blamed on elderly people doing their best to stay active. They are due to North Yorkshire County Council trying to save money on passes even though, according to MP Julian Smith and the Secretary of State, central government gives councils adequate money to cover their use.

Claire Nash Hall Croft Skipton Urgent need for plan Sir - Stephen Butcher (Letters, December 18), your own article and leader (December 11), and many others before, have expressed despair at the continuing lack of an adopted Local Plan for development in Craven.

A main consequence of this is that local people have even less power to influence proposed developments for the better.

The Housing and Planning Minister Brandon Lewis said recently in Parliament: “... the simple way for councils to send speculative developers packing is to have an up-to-date local plan.

“Eighty per cent of councils now have a published Local Plan and slowcoach councils should be held to account by local voters for dragging their feet.”

Many larger councils acted energetically and have already adopted their new local plans. Craven is one of the smallest local authorities in the UK, and it has fewer complex challenges than those.

It may be fruitless to ask for an explanation as to why Craven has been drifting for so long and remains statistically in the worst performing group.

Perhaps our new council leader and the chair of Craven District Council (CDC) planning committee would care to set out the timetable they are demanding their officers now achieve for amending, re-consulting, and having independently assessed as ‘sound’, a fair and clear Local Plan for Craven. Target: all stages complete, for adoption by our council by July 2015. What is currently on the CDC website suggests things will drag on into 2017.

On the evidence of the last four years, neither elected members nor professional officers have yet grasped that this is a serious and urgent matter. How wrong they have been.

By the way, voters, national and local elections are on May 7, 2015.

Michael Devenish Granville Street Skipton Needless penalty?

Sir - I recount a recent experience I had whilst visiting Skipton on a Saturday morning. I stopped my car outside the telephone exchange on Newmarket Street in order to drop my wife off before proceeding to park.

The area where I park is a bus stop lay-by which has a sign prohibiting stopping between 6am and 6pm.

You may not be surprised to learn that a passing civil enforcement officer (CEO) decided to issue me with a penalty charge notice (£70, or £35 if paid within 14 days).

On the face of things, this seems quite fair.

However, the bus stop sign shows five buses a day running from Monday to Friday. My infringement was on a Saturday.

The duration of my stop would have been less than one minute without the CEO’s intervention.

The bus stop lay-by is 40 yards long, so I am somewhat unclear about the obstruction I was causing.

I would have thought a sign precluding stopping between 6am and 6pm on Monday to Friday would have been more appropriate. I challenged the penalty, but this was in vain.

Ronald White Hammerton Drive Hellifield Let’s clear the litter Sir - The whole of Craven and probably the whole of the country, is drowning in litter. The council will not be able to clear it as they do not have enough staff.

We must all try and do something. So many people walk their dogs, go for long rambles on country lanes. Would everyone please do their bit. Just try to clear 100 yards, and if a few hundred did this, Craven could be cleared in a very short time.

Grassington and District Litter Pickers - please meet at the car park at 2pm on Sunday for ‘an intense blast’. Newcomers are most welcome and will find it very worthwhile. Would other litter-picking groups try and go out at this time.

Major blackspots are the Skipton bypass, the road to Keighley, the road to Earby, in fact, pretty well everywhere. It needs to be bottomed and then the council can keep on top of it.

Health and safety will probably be against it, but H and S is used on so many occasions to do nothing.

Rowena (Bunty) Leder Lythe Cottage Grassington School memories Sir - Congratulations to Skipton Girls’ High School and Ermysted’s for their recent sporting results. My mother, who would have been 117 years old on January 1, was a pupil at the Girls’High School when it was independent school and whose headteacher was Miss Larner.

She was there when it ceased to be independent and admitted pupils who had passed a scholarship. Prior to this the school had always had high standards - the subjects taught were very different from what they are today, including English grammar and Latin.

One girl left to do a commercial course and was frowned on for choosing a career different from what was expected of girls from the high school. With the admission of of scholarship pupils the atmosphere changed and it became a case of ‘them and us’.

My mother deplored this attitude, and also the sever discipline which reigned. Pupils had to “walk like a lady and talk like a lady” and punishment was 100 lines of “I must walk and talk like a lady”. Before leaving school in the afternoon the girls were inspected; hats had to be on straight and gloves and buttoned. If not, another 100 lines.

My mother often used to recount the the strict regime which she endured during her stay there.

Over the years many relations of my husband and me have been to the High School either as pupils or teachers, and so we have taken a great interest in the activities and results.

Now we learn there is a planned expansion to the school, with with more practical results included in the curriculum. Already for two years running the GCSE results in food technology have been outstanding. Of 37 pupils there were 36 A and A* grades and one B, giving a total of 97 per cent at A grade.

We look forward to the future of what has always been a school of high achievements.

Mrs SM Graham Bankwell Road, Giggleswick Thanks for fall help Sir - I just want to say thank you to the person who picked me up out side the Tia Greyhound charity shop when I had a bad fall.

Mrs Maxine Allen Moorview Road Skipton Support appreciated Sir - Having been established in Settle for two years, Kathy and I would like to say a big thank-you to the residents of this area in North Yorkshire for your amazing support.

Local shops need local shoppers, and you are helping to keep a small market towns up here vibrant. We appreciate all the support we have received.

When Kathy and I moved up from Bath (where we were also working with traditionally made cheese), we were welcomed very warmly by all the residents of Settle and we have been so encouraged by the support we received from day one.

Thankfully you were prepared to come and try out The Courtyard Dairy, and you welcomed our ethos to supply only top-quality rare and unusual cheeses – for which we thank you, because some farmers we work with would not be able to continue to make cheese and farm if it wasn’t for you buying their cheese through us.

We remain extremely dedicated towards championing and keeping alive traditionally-made farmhouse cheese.

Unfortunately there are not many farmhouse cheese-makers left (for example, there’s only one farmer in Yorkshire making unpasteurised cheese with milk from his own herd of cows). We believe it is more important than ever to champion the small family farms and local business that keep money and jobs within these rural economies.

So, thank you again for all your support – we are extremely grateful and we enjoy living in Settle and being part of the community.

Andy Swinscoe The Courtyard Dairy Settle Libraries petition Sir - If members of the public are worried about the plans of North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) for the stripping out of almost all regular library staff in from their library would they please write letters to the council, complete the consultation forms available from libraries or online, visit and write at http://ny-libraries.org If they have access to a friendly shopkeeper in a town with an NYCC Library in their town where a petition - suggesting the proposed changes might be meaningfully altered- be placed for two weeks would they please forward to me a name and address to send copies of the petition?

John Dean Manor Farm House Beadlam Nawton York Y062 7SX Plea for volunteers Sir - I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of your readers, our supporters and our amazing volunteers across Skipton who have supported the work of the NSPCC during the last year. Without the backing of local people the NSPCC would not be able to help abused children rebuild their lives, or be there for parents who desperately need advice and support.

As we move into 2015, I would like to appeal to your readers to make a very special kind of New Year’s resolution for the NSPCC ‘Just One Day’.

This is a call for people to come forward and volunteer some time to support our work – even if people can only spare one day, it can be a massive help.

In the Craven district we are looking for volunteers to help out. There are many different ways that people can volunteer their time including helping out at an event, becoming an NSPCC ChildLine Schools Service volunteer, or cheering-on NSPCC participants in a sporting race or activity.

Abuse ruins childhood, but it can be prevented. That’s why the NSPCC is here. That’s what drives our work, and that’s why – as long as there’s abuse the NSPCC will fight for every childhood.

Please join us in the fight for every childhood by volunteering some time to support the NSPCC, whether you can spare a day a week or just one day. To find out more please contact the north fundraising office on northappeals@nspcc.org.uk , call 0113 2182732 or log on to www.nspcc.org.uk/volunteer for a range of volunteering opportunities.

Helen Verity NSPCC community fundraising manager for Skipton and Craven District