Readers' Letters

SIR - Cllr Macaulay claims to live in a village of “incredible decline and loss of amenities” (‘Village desperately needs more help’, Letters, March 22).

My experience of this welcoming and vibrant community could not be more different.

Ingleton has a thriving sports scene: football, cricket, badminton, bowls, tennis, cycling, a large climbing wall and more are supported and encouraged by dedicated volunteers.

The local Scouts group plays an active role in village life.

A beautiful park with a children’s play area and seasonal heated pool beside the river is available for locals and visitors.

A world class cycle track is the latest facility for youngsters.

Two sets of public conveniences are maintained by the village.

Ingleton in Bloom keeps the village looking beautiful and cared for.

There are old people’s lunch clubs, bingo, quiz nights, dancing and keep fit classes, two book clubs and the Women’s Institute has a large membership. Three churches have active congregations.

The primary school is thriving with some year classes at capacity.

There are four public houses, two clubs and a variety of eating places.

The village centre has convenience stores, a newsagency, household goods, dress agency, cobblers, garden centre, outdoor activity shops, gift shops, a sweet shop and a stained glass workshop.

There is only one unoccupied building in the village centre, the small ex-Barclays Bank being refurbished to open as a shop.

When the middle school closed a team from the village fought long and hard to retain the buildings and playing field for community use. They were successful and were given the buildings which are now run by a not-for-profit CIC and house a number of businesses and enterprises, as well as providing extra community space.

The playing fields were later bought by the parish council for the cycle track and other outdoor activities.

Annual events, again run by dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers, include: Easter Egg Hunt, 40s and Folk Weekends, Sheafstock rock festival, Autumn Light extravaganza, open gardens, Late Night Shopping and pantomime.

Our wonderful community centre goes from strength to strength. The highly praised Tourist Information Centre and refurbished library are inside.

Many social activities take place here as well as it being a sought after venue for parties and meetings.

Our jumble sales in support of local groups and good causes are held nearly every week and draw people from a wide area.

A dedicated team of ‘jumble ladies’ ensure the success of these events.

To address Cllr Macaulay’s specific accusations.

The community centre is jointly owned and managed by the parish council and community association. Its success in no way affects the viability of the village centre.

Three shops in the village centre expressed an interest in having a small post office within their premises, but all withdrew from negotiations when the expense, onerous conditions and poor returns became clear. We are fortunate to have a full town service facility in the community centre two days each week.

The £110,000 granted by Craven District Council for economic stimulation of the village centre is being spent on suitable projects determined by public consultation and overseen by a group of representative from the business community, local people and the parish council.

Despite attempts to attract stallholders to our small space in the village centre, none have expressed an interest. Local shopkeepers now provide on a daily basis all that was available from the Friday market.

Members of the parish council have been extremely alert to the potential loss of vital services.

In February 2016 we ran a campaign to bring attention to the proposed cuts to pharmacy provision.

With the help of our MP and excellent pharmacist we made cogent representation to Government. Many other local bodies also did so and our voices were heard.

Similarly, we are aware of cuts to GP funding and parish councillors attend multi-disciplinary groups that address issues around health and wellbeing.

To conclude, I am proud to currently represent a parish council that does all it can to support the needs and wishes of this caring and forward looking community.

Paul Weaire, Chairman, Ingleton Parish Council

Thanks for support of Poppy Appeal

SIR - I am very pleased to report that the total, to date, for this year’s Poppy Appeal has exceeded £50,000.

I recently attended a reception for Poppy Appeal Organisers where our area was singled out for increasing its income by 46 per cent over previous years.

On being informed of this, our MP Julian Smith said: ‘I am delighted to hear that the total raised, to date, by the Skipton and Craven area has now exceeded £50,000, far surpassing what was raised in previous years. I pay tribute to the organisers and volunteers and the generosity of the local community’.

This coming year is very important, as we acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.

The Poppy Appeal continues, year on year, to support the work of the Royal British Legion in their efforts to assist those of the armed forces affected by conflict.

I would like to record my personal thanks to everyone who has assisted, in any way, with the Poppy Appeal this year and hope that they will continue to to give their support to this worthy cause

I would be glad to hear from anyone interested in helping with the Poppy Appeal in Skipton and Craven and can be contacted by telephone on 07999 344545 or by e-mail at jp.poppytle112@gmail.com

Jean Phillip, Poppy Appeal Organiser, Skipton and Craven

What’s the long term solution for libraries?

SIR - I would not want this letter to detract in any way from the well-deserved praise bestowed on those volunteers who have generously helped to keep our libraries open in recent years.

What troubles me, however, are the ambiguous words spoken by Cllr Whaite at the recent library conference, when he said that: “We absolutely want this service to go from strength to strength.”

During the earlier consultation period, I sympathised with the council’s difficulty in having to make hard choices during a period of austerity following the banking crisis.

I said however that I hoped that the decision to keep libraries open by using volunteers would be reviewed every couple of years with a view to restoring a properly trained service as soon as possible.

I now get the feeling that too many people may be resigned to libraries being dependent on volunteers for all time, instead of getting back to a situation where qualified librarians are appointed to provide a fully professional service.

If the present situation is allowed to drift, who is going to risk training as a librarian with so few opportunities available to them?

Over time, therefore, the present compromise may become worse, when the current librarians leave the larger branches and can no longer be replaced.

I hope that even the volunteers themselves will join me in pushing for the present library arrangements, however worthy they are, to be seen, like food banks hopefully, as a temporary expedient only in a civilised, affluent country, and not as a permanent way of providing essential services.

Bob Adamson, Fallowfield, Skipton

Turn railway route into a green cycling track

SIR - I write having read David Walsh’s letter (‘Let the study identify the pros and cons’, March 29) suggesting our long list of engineering issues hindering the reopening of the Skipton to Colne railway which opponents keep airing is just a waste of time, and Jane Wood’s comments (‘Reopening of rail route is justifiable’, Letters, March 8) that there are simple engineering solutions to these issues.

I took to the Selrap website as Mr Walsh suggested, to see the possible solutions which have already been discussed.

Most of the numerous documents held are in connection with the development of the East Lancashire rail provision of which Selrap are piggy-backing onto.

The over-riding result with regard to the Skipton to Colne line is that assessment and appraisal is required.

No accurate costs of reopening the line or engineering solutions put forward to reinstating bridges or level crossings have been appraised and if they have I could not find this anywhere on the Selrap site.

Quite a few times comments are held in those Selrap documents which suggest Skipton has an adequate and cheap bus route to Colne and the EL CRPs want to promote cycling and bus routes from all stations.

It seems to me a simple and very possible alternative would be to open the 12 miles as a cycle track, the majority of it away from busy roads keeping the haven for wildlife that sections of the track have become, and a green solution that would bring tourists from everywhere.

I’m sure the Yorkshire tourist board could develop the idea for a lot less than the £100 million Selrap think it should cost (without appraisal) to put the railway back.

Stephanie Harrison, Lowground Farm, Elslack

Never mind the rail, just fix the potholes...

SIR - With a national scheme to improve rail links to the North - HS2, costing billions - and a local idea to reopen the rail link between Colne and Skipton, could I put in a plea for some money to be first spent on road improvements.

I cannot be the only driver who not only has to keep an eye on the road ahead, but also on potholes - with a view to taking evasive action when necessary to avoid damage to my vehicle.

Not only potholes, but the state of the road surfaces in many places is dreadful.

Those motorists who regularly drive from Cross Hills to Colne spend a great deal of time driving very defensively to miss potholes and rough sections of the road.

In 40 years of driving in the area I can honestly say that the roads have never been more hazardous.

J Byrne, Holme Bank, Gill Lane, Cowling

Britain must get its own house in order

SIR - So, here we are in the ‘New Cold War’, an engineered distraction from the grind of austerity and the chaos of (and now apparently fraudulent) Brexit.

From Corbyn as Soviet agent to Putin as master puppeteer installing Trump as his pawn and poisoning ex-spies, the Red is firmly back under the bed.

Corbyn was not an agent, a British company, Cambridge Analytica, appears to have played a real and much larger role in the US elections and Brexit than Russian hackers, and skullduggery in the world of secret services is hardly a uniquely Russian pursuit. In fact, the UK kills British citizens abroad (using drones) on a routine basis though we are not at war in Syria.

An authoritarian leader Putin surely is but so is the President of China.

The Russian state is undemocratic but then so is Saudi Arabia, whose leader the UK recently feted and fawned over. The difference? Saudi Arabia buys our weapons.

Thus we can be friends with a semi-medieval monarchy and sponsor of terrorism who this summer might finally let women drive alone.

Money talks (and the rather undemocratic looting of the Russian state by oligarchs, who have parked and laundered their gains in London, is thereby overlooked).

Let us put our own house in order, where extra-judicial killing, fraud, lies and corruption are as British as the weapons currently being used by the Saudis to destroy and starve Yemen. We’re all in the same bed.

Dr Bruce McLeod, Otterburn

Surely we can do a lot better over litter blight

SIR - I write to enquire whether you have heard of any cure for the very serious disease that appears to be reaching epidemic proportions across our nation? For want of a better title, I will call it ‘litterbugitis’!

It seems that we ‘proud’ British no longer have any pride in, or sense of responsibility for, the appearance of our towns and wonderful countryside.

So many of us are prepared to drop litter in our streets and throw rubbish from our vehicles, seemingly totally immune to the resultant mess.

The selfish assumption seems to be that “someone else will pick it up” and no consideration is given to the fact that clearing up the mess costs money that society needs not to have to afford.

The streets and front gardens of Keighley are ample evidence of this disease but the disease continues to spread far wider than that!

Last week I travelled to Settle. All the way, with hardly a break, both sides of the road are covered in rubbish which can only have been thrown from vehicles.

No doubt new growth of grass will hide some of it but, as this outrageous behaviour continues, there will soon be continuous stretches of piled-up unsightly and probably very smelly refuse. It will look like the recent snow deposits but will certainly not melt away.

It is possibly the case that the cost of engaging the highway maintenance crews to carry out the dangerous task of removing this continuous eyesore is no longer affordable, but it should not be necessary anyway.

I confess that I have absolutely no idea as to how to start to cure the disease that is blighting our towns and countryside.

“Come to Yorkshire and add to and share our rubbish” could well become our slogan.

How can we eradicate ‘litterbugitis’ and replace it with ‘litterbug-hate-is’?

Michael Parkinson, Utley, Keighley

Please do something about the dog fouling

SIR - May I through your newspaper please ask the dog owners of Earby and especially the ones walking their dogs along the front and back of William Street to clean up after their dogs.

I am sick of side-stepping piles of dog mess and having to clean up outside my house. Thank you.

Name and Address Supplied

Help a worthy cause through your will

SIR - As a Professor of Cardiovascular and Diabetes Research at the University of Leeds, I see first-hand how devastating heart disease can be.

We are determined to spare more families the pain of losing a loved one to these conditions.

Research funded by the British Heart Foundation has helped halve death rates from heart and circulatory diseases over the past 50 years. So much of our work has only been possible thanks to the amazing individuals who have remembered the BHF in their will.

These special gifts fund more than a quarter of all cardiovascular research in the UK.

In the past year Yorkshire and the Humber residents left £5.9 million in their wills to the British Heart Foundation to help fund life-saving cardiovascular research.

I would personally like to honour these people and express our gratitude to their families for making research breakthroughs possible and helping to save thousands of lives.

But there’s still so much more to do, and there are 580,000 people in Yorkshire and the Humber living with cardiovascular disease right now.

A new study shows that over a third of over-65s polled in the region said they would consider leaving a gift to charity in their will; the top motivations for this included ‘wanting to make a difference’ and it ‘feeling like the right thing to do’.

I would like to say a huge thank you to all those who have already decided to support the BHF in this unique way and encourage more people to consider doing the same, so we can unlock further medical breakthroughs and save more lives.

A gift of any size, after you’ve provided for your loved ones, will enable the BHF to continue to fund pioneering research so we can beat heart and circulatory disease for good.

To find out more about leaving a gift in your will, please visit bhf.org.uk/wills

Professor Mark Kearney, BHF-funded professor at the University of Leeds