Letters to the editor

We have watched this company grow over the years and, yes, we accept it brings employment to the local area, but what about the local residents who live near it?

Airedale Chemical Company Ltd have submitted a planning application for the installation of a further 13 storage vessels with safety guard rails, concrete bund and boundary screening. It already has three tanks which, when erected, we were reassured the vessels would not show above the height of the old Midland Mills building. The vessels don’t, but they then added safety guard rails and pipe work which does now take the height above the mill.

We were also reassured no hazardous substances would be stored in any of these containers. Again, clearly not the case, as nitric acid and its effect on the public has sadly just been clearly demonstrated. In fact, your report stated: “This is a particularly hazardous substance which demands a high level of control.”

A total of 16 vessels in one area of the site is actually quite a worrying prospect, not to mention an eyesore.

We feel nobody listens anymore to the surrounding residents or actually cares. Hopefully, nothing else will ever happen, but to have such a concentration of chemical substances in one area is having a complete disregard for the surrounding neighbourhood.

I keep regularly reading articles stating Airedale Chemical Company Ltd has great community links – it has obviously never spoken to the local residents who surround this ever-expanding business. Or is that the problem? Has it expanded so much it has outgrown its current location?

I am under no illusion this application will probably get the required approval of the planning committee whenever it reaches its agenda, but just wanted to make more people aware of what this company is proposing.

LINDA WILD, Cross Hills.

VOTE Independent, get Labour….. but no flowers.

Whilst I am aware that many members of the public distrust many elected politicians, I have myself been surprised and disappointed by the recent conduct of a fellow elected member of Bradford Council.

Regular readers of the local news may recall seeing Councillor Adrian Naylor claiming he wished to see the retention of the council service providing hanging baskets and flower beds and also maintaining green open spaces throughout Keighley, Ilkley and Haworth. All very laudable one might think.

Sadly not. The same Councillor Naylor then tipped up at the meeting of the Keighley area committee where it was to be decided whether the service would be continued or discontinued and voted with the Labour councillors, to end the service in spring 2016. From that time there will be no hanging baskets and green spaces and flower beds will be allowed to overgrow and become unkempt.

The Labour councillors did not have enough votes to push the decision through on their own and could only do so with Councillor Naylor’s support. If he had voted with his former Conservative colleagues and supported the continuation of the service, it would not be being removed.

Councillor Naylor has also voted with the Labour members of the committee, to give them the chairmanship of it. In effect, people who voted for an “Independent” Councillor Naylor appear to have acquired an extension of the Labour Group on the council, who blatantly neglect rural outer communities in favour of the city.

Any Labour council cuts to local services decided by the area committee are and can only continue to be forced through with the vote of Councillor Naylor.

COUNCILLOR ANDREW MALLINSON, Conservative councillor for Craven on Bradford Council.

YOU can imagine my horror as one of the objectors upon seeing in the Craven Herald the temporary mosque marquee in Skipton could remain for another two months.

Allow me, as a resident of Pendle Street, to fill you in.

About August or September last year, this marquee appeared on the green immediately to the rear of my house. We had heard rumours of it coming but assumed we would be consulted or at least informed. Nothing came except for the marquee.

Contacting the council and questioning it, I was told it was only there for 28 days while some work was carried out in the mosque in a nearby street.

So the temporary mosque was imposed upon us, and then our lives have gradually been made hell.

Obviously, the work planned for the mosque was more than was admitted and would take a lot longer than 28 days. A request for planning permission duly arrived with the council planners.

It was delegated and approved with the conditions it must not be used outside of 6am and 8pm.

The users of the mosque were in immediate contravention of these conditions, the council was informed but would not respond.

Twice planning consent has been approved over objections, even though the people of the mosque consistently use it outside of those conditions. The prayer times quoted are completely incorrect.

The last prayers of the day are 11pm. Wrong. They start before 11pm and go on past midnight gradually getting louder. First prayers are at 3am and last about 30 minutes.

After the numerous complaints from people in Pendle Street, the 3am prayers have quietened down.

Here we are nearly a year after the marquee was erected without consulting neighbours, and many Pendle Street residents are suffering sleep deprivation. I ended up taking my first sick leave in two years due to nervous exhaustion bringing on a physical illness for a couple of weeks.

Make no mistake, I have lived here happily for 21 years. I’m not an incomer to a place that has always had a noise problem.

Council planners refuse to talk to us about it, or at best ignore us. Even our local councillor has taken to no longer responding or answering us.

I am driven to absolute despair and depression and am angry and tired.

NM FOXTON Pendle Street, Skipton