11:10am Saturday 10th July 2010
Sir - In reply to Mr Kerwin-Davey’s letter, it is indeed unfortunate that so few people in Skipton are aware of the craftsmanship of Robert Thompson in the town hall’s council chamber.
While the chamber is “open” to the public eight times a year at council meetings, these are not occasions for a full appreciation of the work.
The Friends of Craven Museum and the Civic Society have arranged for informative tours of the room on Saturday September 11, a Heritage Open Day, when the public can admire Mr Thompson’s work and hear about the history of the room.
It is to be hoped that while enjoying the furniture in the room, the public is not too distressed by the peeling wallpaper and general air of neglect in the chamber, a sad indication of its importance to Craven District Council.
Christine Walton, Neville Street, Skipton
Sir - The latest news, 40 per cent budget cuts being mooted.
Or is this another way to get us to accept only 25 per cent cuts in our services?
Are we to see our councillors making a stand to defend our services in Craven, North Yorkshire, in the UK? Savage cuts to leisure, museums and parks. Bin collections and street lighting to be reduced. An estimated 56,000 fewer police on our streets. Some future.
Tens of thousands of workers thrown out of work and on to benefits. If they will then exist!
Bankers and Brown brought us to this. Financial woes exist throughout the world. We have simply added a further British dimension.
Needless to say the bankers and City slickers will not suffer. We ordinary folk will, as so often in the past, bail them out.
Savage cuts are needed. We can first of all start by drastically reducing military spending currently costing us £46 billion.
We might ask, what will we have worth defending?
So the money is there to expand our public services, education, NHS, police.
Let us use it. Let us see our leaders taking action now.
Brian Ormondroyd, Brindley Court, Skipton
Sir – Craven Ratepayers’ Action Group (CRAG) notes that Susan Goodhall has left Craven District Council part way through her contract with them, an 18-month contract at £600 a day for three days a week, and proportionately more than the Prime Minister receives.
We have requested of Craven District Council as to whether any additional sums have been paid over and above the 10 months which the lady has worked, and hope to have an early answer, although we have never received information regarding the “pay-off” amount which the last chief executive received.
Interestingly Mrs Goodhall, who was responsible for the council’s finances, had reportedly expressed her concern about the fragile state of the council’s finances, a state of affairs long reported by CRAG, and equally lengthily denied by such as the council leader, Coun Knowles-Fitton, who would have us all believe that the council’s finances are “tickety-boo” and in fine fettle!
Unfortunately the accounts read very differently, so that in the last published financial year (2008/9), for example, the cash paid to employees rose from £8.1 million to almost £9.6 million, an over 18 per cent increase. In 2003/4 – a mere five years earlier – the amount paid to employees was £5.6 million, that’s an increase of over 70 per cent in five short years!
Only two other items seem to have increased at such a rapid pace, one being the salaries paid to executives, which stood at under £55,000 for the chief executive in 2001 as compared to a junior executive, Susan Goodhall, who received a pro rata payment of £144,000 p.a. allowing for four weeks’ unpaid holiday.
The other? Why, councillors’ allowances! In 2000/2001 the total paid was under £32,000, some eight years later that total had increased to over £166,000 – an increase of over 400 per cent. This does not take into account the increases councillors voted for themselves this year, of course, Coun Knowles-Fitton voting himself a 25 per cent increase in his personal allowance.
CRAG awaits this year’s financial statement from CDC, it is sure to be an interesting, if possibly depressing, read.
Alan Perrow Chairman, CRAG, Bannister Walk, Cowling
Sir - I would like to thank everyone concerned for all the help and support I received following my accident on Skipton High Street on Gala Day, June 12.
June Lister, Prospect Terrace, Skipton
Sir - Craven Citizens’ Advice Bureau would like to support the campaign to keep the magistrates’ and county courts open in Skipton.
We believe that this is a fundamental issue about access to justice. Although the consultation documents suggest that consideration should be given to people living in rural areas, this is clearly not the case in this situation.
The decision seems to be based on people who live in Skipton but many court-users come from Settle, Bentham, Earby and Barnoldswick and will all have to make lengthy round trips to have their cases heard. In particular there is no direct rail link to Harrogate from Craven and train travel will have to be through Leeds.
It is also pertinent to note that many court hearings are very short and will therefore be even more costly for members of the public in time and travel costs than they are already.
Those agencies which support clients who have court hearings will also face the same problem of lengthy and expensive journeys to represent our clients. For those people using solicitors, their costs will rocket. No doubt many people will be put off pursuing quite legitimate claims by the additional cost and inconvenience of a lengthy trip to an unfamiliar location.
The consultation appears to have given no consideration to anything except money. But we doubt that in fact there will be much money saved for the courts themselves as there will be additional costs incurred in Bradford and Harrogate to provide chambers for the District Judges and facilities for the court staff.
It seems sad that we have a building which is fit for purpose and accessible for disabled people which will presumably either be sold off or mothballed. No thought appears to have been given to using it for tribunals as well as court hearings, thus making the building better-used. Finally, however, the most fundamental issue is that an aspect of the life of our community in Craven will disappear. The court serves the community and the people who live and work in this area of the Dales. The court staff, judges and magistrates all have links to the community, as do the organisations like ours which help people to access justice. Surely this is something we should not lose?
Erica Cadbury, Bureau Manager, Craven Citizens’ Advice Bureau, St Andrew’s Church Hall, Newmarket Street, Skipton
Sir - At last! Someone has come forward and said the many things that most of us are thinking. Well done AJ Anderson last week on his comments re Craven District Council and their planned move to Belle Vue Mill.
We must be subjected to one of the worst councils in the country. What is important to them? Their own status, expenses, surroundings and little else.
We were told a couple of years ago that the green belt site on Gargrave Road was vastly undersold to HML on the basis that it would save and increase jobs in the Skipton area and new council buildings would be erected on the same site, to save money for local council tax payers.
What is the reality? HML have already announced redundancies and there is no sign of the council offices being built on the site.
Why? We underlings in Craven were told that planning permission was given on the basis that the council offices would be built. When is it going to be explained why this is not now taking place?
Our local councillors seem to take little heed as to what local people need, want, their problems, their questions or their concerns. ‘I’m all right, Jack’ seems to be the criteria by which they work. Their allowances are increased, their pensions are nicely accruing (more than many can say at this tough time) but we get no answers.
Whitehall has now decreed that there is to be no increases in local council taxes. How, in this time of austerity and recession, can they even begin to think that it is right to build nice new offices on a totally unsuitable site amidst residential dwellings on a site that is totally unsuitable because of the lack of parking? They mutter things about taking up so many spaces on public car parks. I can only think that none of the councillors have ever visited these car parks on market days when there is not a space to be had.
We, who live in the area, are already at our wits’ end over the selfish, unthinking and inconsiderate ‘fly’ parkers who think it is okay to clog up our very limited parking with their cars, even parking in the entrance to Back Bridge Street or on our garden.
Complaints to our esteemed local council bring forward the response ‘tough, what do you want us to do about it?’ Those of us who lived here have nowhere else for our visitors, carers, housekeepers, tradesmen, doctors, delivery vans, etc to park other than to pay on local car parks.
I would suggest that if Craven District Council are so desperate for new premises they should take over a very large building in the centre of the town now vacated by HML – or do the even more sensible thing by showing that they care about the area and use their limited resources on the people in the Craven district and remain in the offices they are at present occupying.
Lynda Yates, Victoria Mill, Belmont Wharfe, Skipton
Sir - I live in Skipton and travel to Ilkley quite often to shop.
I have noticed that the cones at the side of the road just after passing Chelker Reservoir, where the new walls have been built, are starting to take root.
I would like to know who is responsible for their removal and when this will take place.
I am sure that they could be used on another job and as everyone is trying to save money surely they have done their duty there and are ready to move on?
J K Whitehead, The Avenue, Overdale Park, Skipton
Sir - I write in response to the letter from Helen Flynn in the Craven Herald of July 1. She writes: “Academies are schools… free from local authority involvement”.
Does this mean there will be no inspection, or regulation, of curriculum or discipline procedures for example? Will schools be free to bring back the birch and other corporal punishment devices? Will they be able to select all their pupils, and pay staff as little as they want? Won’t it be giving a great deal of power to the headteacher? Will it lead to the old system of grammar-type schools for the brightest children, usually with better-off parents, and secondary modern schools for the children of less-well-off parents?
It smacks to me of “privatisation” of the education system. Universities are already begging for money from their alumni, so I expect these academies will be begging from parents, past and present.
I well remember the struggle my parents had to make to find the termly “school fund” for the grammar school I went to. I was one of very few children from the council estate where I grew up who passed the 11-plus. I wonder what my chances would have been in today’s climate? I certainly would not have had a computer or internet access.
With hospitals becoming “independent” foundation trusts, will there be any national institutions or industries left? Is this what the floating voters thought they were voting for in the General Election?
I hope this will be a relatively short-term blip in the scheme of things, and that when the coalition breaks down, we will soon get back to more sensible governing. We need to make the rich poorer, and the poor richer to narrow the gap, and provide more equal opportunities in education at every level, for all.
Loretta Gooch, Midland Terrace, Hellifield
Sir - With talk of cuts in frontline policing, it would be interesting if the North Yorkshire force could provide the Craven Herald with a precise list of the makes and models of its marked police vehicles.
It would then be interesting to read any attempted justification of such bewildering diversity.
Economy of scale from bulk purchase, servicing and maintenance costs would suggest buying only one brand would save the taxpayer a much-needed fortune.
Probably wouldn’t be as much fun, though.
C Tate, High Street, Gargrave
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