Letters to the editor

IT is disastrous news that yet again, the main Trans-Pennine crossing of the A59 between Skipton and Harrogate will remain closed at Kex Gill for several weeks (see this week’s front page).
The strategic route is of huge economic importance for the businesses of our region and the wider Northern England.
The current proposals to further stabilise this steep ravine is yet again only a short-term stitch to patch up the moorland bog. Pouring more hundreds of thousands of pounds down that hillside cannot in any way be termed as value for money for the hard-pressed taxpayers of Craven. North Yorkshire County Council has a full scheme, proposed some years ago, worked up and ready to go to solve this problem once and forever. This scheme can be pulled off the shelf, dusted down and implemented without delay. What is needed is the government to release the capital funding.
This proposed relief road would follow the old Roman road on the top of the north side of Kex Gill. After all, the Romans did know a thing or two about building roads. The relief road already constitutes part of the current North Yorkshire County Council transport policies programme.
It was unfortunate no elected member from Skipton or the wider Craven was invited to the briefing for affected communities. Unless we all work and pull together, then the A59 at Kex Gill will remain at the mercy of the vagaries of the Pennine weather, with the ongoing closures for decades to come.
Several years ago, when Bolton Bridge, over the River Wharfe, failed, all the councils and agencies involved worked closely and constructively together. Back then, a new bridge and the diversion roads required were designed and the financing secured in a few short months. If the government is serious about the Northern Powerhouse, then it must respond with the capital funding, otherwise we will continue to be the poor relations in the Northern Powerhouse. Political photoshoots are two-a-penny. What Skipton and Craven needs is action.
COUNCILLOR ROBERT HESELTINE
Skipton

I THANK Messrs Rigby and Emmett for responding to my letter – Time to wake up to climate danger (Craven Herald, December 31) – although neither responded to the main point, which was whether fracking under the national park on the grounds that it might reduce domestic energy bills should be supported.
Mr Rigby rightly says we need to deal urgently with the huge surges of water that flow from our river catchments. Grips in moorland that contribute to flash floods were installed to create grazing land to produce meat and lower domestic food bills. Good river catchment management could have foreseen and alleviated or even prevented the “unintended consequences”, to which Mr Rigby refers. This should act as a warning that today’s dash for allegedly cheap shale gas will cost future generations dearly.
Mr Rigby attributes my support for the Brightenber Hill wind farm to a “beggar my neighbour” attitude. The national park contributes significantly in other ways to reducing human impact on the environment, including good river catchment management, but is highly vulnerable to climate change. My statement to the planning committee focused on the wider need to combat a very real threat to our environment.
Mr Rigby’s contention wind farms only generate 24 per cent of the time is part of the steady stream of misinformation and myth emanating from the anti-wind lobby. Wind farms generate 85 to 90 per cent of the time, comparable to a fossil-fuelled power station, but at a rate safely below their rated maximum because, thankfully, the wind doesn’t blow at 65mph 100 per cent of the time.
I am accused of being unwilling to accept that “loss of residential amenity” is a key factor in planning decisions. I contend that whole communities driven out of their homes by flooding is a far greater loss of residential amenity than a few wind turbines sited a kilometre away from the nearest country mansion. Of course, to Mr Rigby, the above is green hogwash. With virtually all of the world’s scientific opinion warning of the effects of human-induced climate change, 195 nations signing a treaty in Paris to curb greenhouse gas emissions, and backing from our own prime minister, it would be irresponsible to ignore the challenge this threat presents to the planet.
I have never accused the group Friends of Craven Landscape of being “climate change deniers”, as Mr Emmett’s letter claims. He dreams of “far better technologies less damaging to the landscape”. In rural landscapes, community renewable energy is appropriate in scale, practical and safe. Find out more at the gamaenergy.co.uk website.
It’s time for us all, regardless of postcode, to do our bit to tackle and adjust to inevitable changes in climate resulting from human activity, which are threatening our civilisation.
SANDY TOD
Malham

ONE sympathises with John Howard, who has been ordered to demolish a barn he rebuilt near Gargrave – Demolish the barn or face court action (Craven Herald, January 14).
Anyone who has met John Howard will not doubt his passion for the future of agriculture and support for rural life.
Unfortunately, if a barn doesn’t look like a barn then it’s possibly not meant to be a barn. Given its location at his attractive holiday-let hamlet, which also manages weddings, and an earlier application to use it for leisure activity, this suggests it was aimed at tourism rather than farming. Planners don’t like having the wool pulled over their eyes.
They are not daft.
However, it would be a pity to see all that skilled work dismantled.
FREDERIC MANBY
High Street, Gargrave