Letters to the editor

It is a long tale but do bear with me as it contains some interesting information.

Problems started last autumn when construction work at Craven College began and approximately 12 vans and cars parked right up to our junction. We had no visibility in either direction and dreaded trying to pull out into traffic travelling at 40mph. Bear in mind that any collision would be deemed our fault.

We rang the college. Not their problem but the contractor. We rang the contractor. Not their problem, it was sub-contractors. We contacted highways and asked for yellow lines. Their response was “no”. Yellow lines take a long time and are expensive. We rang the police and at last some action. Our Community Support Officer spoke to the college, contractor and HML and attempted to arrange parking in Aireville Park or the Auction Mart. Both council and mart said “no”.

Next step, notices on the vehicles warning they were illegally parked and would be ticketed. I then had a phone call from the traffic sergeant who had “just been on a course”. Parking too close to a junction was only an obstruction if police witnessed somebody trying to leave. I commented that if that was the law, then the law was an “ass” but we would play the game. An officer could come and we would try to leave. We rang, we thought nobody came but apparently they did and decided there was no obstruction despite the obvious hazard.

A “Keep Clear” notice was then mentioned. We contacted highways. Was it cheaper and quicker? Could we have one? Yes and again yes. A result! We have a “Keep Clear” notice protecting our junction. Problem solved? No!

By this time the number of vehicles had reached more than 30. Our junction was clear but parking extended to the Mart roundabout in one direction and half way to Rockwood in the other. In my naivety, I thought the cycle lane would be protected. The Highway Code states a motorist may enter a cycle lane protected by a broken line in order to proceed if it is clear but may only stop in exceptional circumstances. I asked the police what was exceptional about construction workers, HML employees, college staff and students. This brought the most bizarre response yet in this sorry tale “The Highway Code is advisory only”! Unfortunately, I do not have this in writing so couldn’t recommend that you try it out if fined for a traffic offence.

Now there is a new player, Keelham Farm Shop. Their traffic assessment by an appropriately-named company, TRIC, calculated that the shop would generate no more traffic than the garage and small store, perhaps on Saturdays slightly less. I helpfully pointed out that if they were correct, the business would fail within a year, but surprisingly they went ahead.

Of course, parking problems are not confined to Gargrave Road. Car parks are half empty while residential roads are full. I don’t have an answer but perhaps someone out there has. I would love to hear.

JILL WILSON, Aireville Grange, Skipton.

REGARDING last week’s story – New bin collection system set to launch (Craven Herald, July 30) – some Health and Safety jobsworth has decided our binmen can no longer empty bins in certain areas due to “refuse collectors increasing their risk of injury by collecting bins from considerable distances”.

I have received no information, as yet, about this new scheme due to start soon, so have no idea if my bins will be classed as dangerous objects to move.

So what of the poor Craven residents who suddenly find their bins are a perilous hazard to binmen, who I would like to think are trained in the fine art of rubbish bin manoeuvres? Are the good citizens of Craven, untrained as they are, to be left at risk of serious injury fighting a recalcitrant dustbin that our excellent, skilled refuse collectors are not allowed to touch due to the serious risk to their health?

Doesn’t Craven Council have a duty of care to the people who pay its wages?

Surely, putting residents in the front line of extreme refuse collection, without in-depth training and the necessary protective equipment, is a blatant disregard of that duty of care?

PAUL MORLEY, Ribblesdale Estate, Long Preston.

I WONDER how many people who use the railway line from Skipton into Leeds or Bradford are aware of the planning application that has gone in to increase the amount of chemicals that are stored close to the line and close to local residents’ homes?

A planning application – 32/2015/15584 – has been put in by the same company that had to pay compensation to one of its workers of £12,000 after it breached Health and Safety rules and he was exposed to a nitric acid gas leak.

This does not strike me as the kind of development that should be sited close to a major public transport route or to homes that are less than 30 metres away.

I trust we will be able to rely on the members of our planning authority to reject this application and keep us all safe.

ANDY BROWN, Main Street, Cononley.

CONCERNING the article in this week’s Craven Herald by Stuart Thompson entitled “Crackdown as road death figures rocket” (Craven Herald, July 30) where you ask “what do we think”, I find it incredulous North Yorkshire Police show such complete contempt towards the taxpayer with this gung-ho attitude towards the public.

I suspect it is because the police in our county have so little to do, vis a vis conventional crime, that they busy themselves by pursuing the usual soft target of the unwary motorist.

Just a few months ago, the police were bemoaning the cost-cutting measures that could force them to close Skipton Police Station against a huge groundswell of public opinion to the contrary, despite little foresight about the costs and inconvenience of transporting miscreants to Harrogate.

Then, last month, through your pages, we learned the police are spending a vast amount of money on doubling their fleet of camera vans – not to be used at accident blackspots, as claimed, but to be cynically deployed at sites where they can make the most money, notably on the Aire Valley trunk road on a Friday afternoon, trapping unsuspecting West Yorkshire holidaymakers on their way to the West Coast or the Lakes for a well-earned break. Similarly, at the end of the Clapham bypass on a Sunday tea-time trapping motorists on their way home.

Perhaps if some of this money was invested in repairing damaged road surfaces and/or redesigning dangerous road junctions, which really are accident blackspots, the toll of injuries would decrease organically without the need for this expensive and heavy-handed targeting of the motorist.

We now read that in the further interest of that old chestnut “road safety”, another huge sum is being spent on unmarked cars and motorcycles equipped with expensive specialist recognition devices, and a helicopter, and with no mention of the cost of the training and wages of the people to operate this equipment, and all their support services!

These are the policies of a force that is out of control and with little or no accountability to the taxpayer. Perhaps an inquiry into the goings-on at Northallerton is long overdue?

We read of increased sheep rustling being of major concern in the Dales, but of little other serious crime, and our policing should reflect this.

This is North Yorkshire, not Greater Manchester.

NIGEL STEPHENSON, Ghyll Close, Steeton.

I NEED help locating the grave of my twin, stillborn brother at Barnoldswick Ghyll Church.

We were born in Skipton and he was buried shortly after November 3, 1950. Five years ago, I thought it would be appropriate to lay some flowers on his grave on our 60th birthday but was unable to locate it.

I remember from my childhood in Barnoldswick visiting,with my parents, a row of small mounds, the unmarked graves of several stillborn babies.

I contacted the clergy and was told no record existed for the burial, but that was not unusual for stillbirths in the 1950s.

Parts of the graveyard have been allowed to overgrow to assist wildlife conservation, and it may well be in one of these areas. Does anyone know the location of these graves?

I would really appreciate laying some flowers on our 65th birthday later this year, somewhere near the grave at least.

Incidentally, my brothers Neil and Ian and I are having a reunion in Barnoldswick later this year. We now all live in different parts of England. If anyone who knows us wishes to meet up please contact me. My email address is johngberry@btinternet.com.

GRAHAM BERRY, Leaf House, 631 Leeds Road, Thackley, Bradford, BD10 8JS.

IN response to Roger Bell’s letter in last week’s edition – Life in the slow lane (Craven Herald, July 30) – I thought it was only right to provide a bit of balance to the broadband speeds debate.

I, too, live in Gargrave, but my broadband connection has always been fast, and stable, despite not living close to the exchange.

This has been the case in the past when using a standard ADSL connection (through a copper wire) and also after recently upgrading to a fibre connection.

At the time of writing, my download speed is 23mbps and my upload speed is 5.3mbps, so slow speeds experienced by some Gargrave residents aren’t down to the exchange not being able to provide “superfast broadband”.

DAN THOMPSON, Old Hall Farm, Gargrave.

YOU invite comments on an article in last week’s paper re the story “Quarry art fails to raise councillors’ temperature” (Craven Herald, July 30).

It seems Lafarge Tarmac is offering an expensive, dubious, unnecessary and probably unwanted by local residents (who have not been consulted) artwork to be located in the disused Threshfield Quarry as compensation in order to gain permission to extend the working area at Swinden quarry.

Any proposed extension to the latter quarry should be considered on its own intrinsic merits, bearing in mind the inconvenience to other road users caused by quarry lorries and the overriding commitment of the YDNP to prevent destruction of the natural environment, without respect to proffered sweeteners.

If, however, the quarry firm wants to do something that would be truly appreciated by local residents and visitors alike, and that would make a positive contribution to the area from which they take so much, why don’t they subsidise public transportation in Cravendale and especially in Upper Wharfdale?

In recent weeks, there have been very well-attended meetings in Kettlewell, Grassington and Hebden, where the unanimous feeling has been one of protest and dismay at recent cuts in the frequency of bus services and the much more severe cuts that are planned for next year.

If spent in subsidising the local bus service, £11,000 that Craven District Council has agreed to pay towards the cost of the proposed sculpture plus the proffered £220,000 from Lafarge Tarmac would be suffice to reverse cuts that have already been made and ensure a reliable and convenient bus service for the future.

LAUREL PHILLIPSON, Brooklyn, Threshfield.

I REFER to your article concerning Skipton’s Aireville Park pump track opening – Pump track is opened in park in time for summer (Craven Herald, July 30).

As regular users of the park will know, the grass across the path from the track can remain waterlogged for weeks on end during the winter.

The 130 metres of track on a one metre-high embankment, and costing some £315 per metre, forms several enclosed areas, and I did not notice measures to drain these areas being installed during construction.

As any ponding is likely to soften the embankments and damage the track surfaces, is the Craven District Council happy that its design is waterproof?

RICHARD SYKES, Park View, Skipton.

WITH regard to the latest application to build on Shires Lane in Embsay – Building proposal is open for discussion (Craven Herald, July 30) – I suggest all with an interest visit the website of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees.

It will inform you about a very earnest green policy and explain how they wish to protect our beautiful landscape – “enhancing our environment”, as they put it.

I wonder how this ethos fits in with the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees’ planning application for 39 homes in Embsay, which I’m certain won’t enhance the environment? Perhaps the Trustees are only interested in the “preservation of Bolton Abbey for all”, as the website suggests. Any other village is clearly fair game for the Duke of Devonshire.

If the Trustees haven’t already got the message, could I make it clear here? We would like to protect the landscape of Embsay in the very same way they wish to preserve that of Bolton Abbey. We don’t want or need another housing development.

JOHN LOVELL, Embsay.

REGARDING last week’s story about the closure of the Devonshire Hotel in Grassington – Visitors stranded as pub locked up (Craven Herald, July 30) – we in the village have been dismayed for some time at the developing state of the hotel, situated so prominently in the village square.

I am sorry guests were temporarily let down, but the prospect of Timothy Taylor’s Brewery taking over the business of this handsome and potentially-smart hotel is to be heartily welcomed... and their beer is so good! I do hope these plans will proceed successfully.

PHYLLIDA OATES, Hardy Grange, Grassington.

THERE is no point in using such resources as helicopters, bikes and cameras to try to stop criminal road users breaking various laws in their abuse of the roads if they are given pathetic “joke” sentences and meaninglessly paltry fines – Crackdown as road death figures rocket (Craven Herald, July 30).

The penalty should be proportional fines, rest-of-life driving bans and forfeiture of all vehicles owned by the criminal (and those used by them to break the law, whether their own vehicle or another’s, in which case they should be liable to the owner for replacement of it).

The reason the law is disregarded routinely is because it isn’t enforced rigorously. Farce is too polite a word for it but will have to suffice.

And illegal parking/stopping on double yellow lines? Enforcement please instead of the ‘turn-a-blind-eye’ negligence currently practised.

SAM MOORE, Todmorden.