Little by little (From Craven Herald)

Little by little

10:10am Saturday 13th February 2010 in

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Sir - Probably the most cogent argument in favour of the proposed wind farm at Brightenber Hill is the statement in the Craven Herald’s January 28 editorial that the Government’s target to produce 40mw of renewable energy in Craven is “unlikely to be met and an unreasonable one”.

Why should Craven’s share of the national load be met from offshore wind turbines? Out of sight out of mind, maybe. The Government has only granted a licence for offshore wind developments – power companies (mainly foreign) developing them have to cover the immense costs of the engineering challenge of installing these large turbines in deep water and adverse conditions and make a profit for their shareholders. Will Craven’s residents cheerfully accept the high cost of offshore electricity produced by foreign companies?

The transmission infrastructure has to be built to deliver power to onshore communities. Will Craven’s residents be prepared for rows of pylons marching across the same ground they have protected from the turbines?

Out of sight out of mind was inherent in exploiting fossil fuel reserves – now we see the damage caused by resultant greenhouse gas emissions. What right have we to assume that the building of offshore wind farms on the scale proposed is not going to result in actual damage to the seabed and marine life?

Why cannot the 40mw renewables target be met? Have we in Craven tried to meet it?

This region has numerous small-scale renewable energy opportunities which communities could develop. Settle Hydro (50kw) is one small but excellent example. While many such projects would be required to realise the Government’s target, if communities across Craven, spurred on by the local authorities, made it their business to exploit local renewable energy for their own needs, the target might just be attainable.

Those pretty commuter villages, dependent for employment on tourism and the industrial belt of West Yorkshire, would benefit from sustainable local jobs for young people while the people of Craven would benefit from cheap, reliable, clean energy, produced by communities, for communities, with minimal scenic impact.

North Craven Environmental Alliance, Anne Ambrose (Settle Eco Group), Eddie Leggett (Clapham Community Cooperative Ltd), Annie Neligan (Bentham Environmentally Sustainable Town), Sandy Tod (Malhamdale Initiative), c/o West Barn, Friars Garth, Malham

Inspector’s choice

Sir - I attended every day of the recent Brightenber wind farm inquiry and would like to add my comments to your three-page spread (Herald, January 28).

The Government’s leading advisor on energy and climate change is an organisation called AEA Technology. Some years ago, the Yorkshire and Humber regional government asked AEA Technology to look at the region’s renewable energy strategy and to set regional targets for 2010 and 2021. AEA Technology devised a system that graded the region’s landscape into three levels of sensitivity to wind farm development; these were high, medium and low sensitivity.

Their rating for Brightenber Hill and its surrounding landscape was “high sensitivity” – the same rating as the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The regional government accepted AEA Technology’s recommendations and they now form part of the regional renewable energy policy.

Let’s get back to those targets: the renewable energy target for Yorkshire and Humber region is 708 megawatts (mw) by 2010 and 1,862mw by 2021. Following months of research, my best estimate is that, right now, the region has 1,500mw of renewable energy either generating, under construction or with consented planning permission. On top of that, there is another 4,700mw in the planning process. This includes 3,000mw from wind turbines to be sited offshore near Hornsea.

By a quirk of the planning process, not all these developments count towards the targets but, rest assured, all are green, renewable energy projects.

I’m not alone in believing this region is well ahead of the game. Last year, The British Wind Energy Association reported: “The best-performing regions with respect to consented onshore wind capacity in the period April 2006 - April 2009 are Yorkshire and Humber and the North East.”

The Government’s planning policy states: “Renewable energy developments should be capable of being accommodated throughout England in locations where the technology is viable and environmental, economic and social impacts can be addressed satisfactorily.”

The planning inspector must now do a fine balancing act between meeting Government targets and protecting landscape that is officially graded as highly sensitive to wind farm development.

He must also consider how the turbines will overwhelm the lives of people living just hundreds of yards from them and of how the turbines will overshadow the area’s many charming listed buildings.

So, what’s it to be: a stunningly beautiful landscape considered by Government to be highly sensitive to wind farm development, or Government targets? We await his decision.

Stephanie Emmett, Ivy End, Bank Newton

Phone saviour

Sir - On Tuesday January 26, I travelled from Leeds on the 2.56pm train, getting off at Bingley.

I got home and discovered I had lost my phone and then picked up the house phone to find a message from a lady saying she had found it and would hand it in.

As she used my phone to call, I have no way of contacting and thanking her, but, hopefully she will read this, a big “thank-you”.

Jay Rolfs, Park Drive, Eldwick

Self-publicising

Sir - We learn that North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) is to introduce an additional levy to increase their council tax take to meet the cost of treating the roads during the winter. Instead of screwing the public, why not sort out the non-essential expenditure?

We have just received another edition of NY Times. When I inquired with NYCC, I was told that the annual cost of this publication was approaching £500,000.

This self-publicising organ tells us how well the county council has coped with adverse conditions, but of course we already knew, as we slid down into Settle Market Place, sympathising with those in more remote locations.

I’m not getting at the workers out doing the job, as basically we are told the problems stem from lack of funding. Well, for a start, get rid of NY Times and throw that money into the winter maintenance pot. Then look for other savings (I am convinced there will be many).

A glance at the job opportunities in the NY Times flags up a post as a HR Advisor in the Chief Executives Group. The description mentions “HR Service going through a period of transformation and modernisation ... at this exciting time an additional post has arisen”.

Frankly, that says it all about public expenditure, not only at NYCC but across all sectors – transformation and modernisation equals increased cost.

So (council leader) Coun Weighell, why don’t you and your councillor colleagues tackle expenditure on non-essential items and administration and get the money to where it’s needed. We will see the improvement and don’t need a newspaper to tell us.

Trevor Graveson, Castle Hill, Settle

Recycling shambles

Sir - I’m all for recycling but, oh dear, Craven District Council does seem to have got it badly wrong.

Last year at a meeting at Cowling Village Institute we were told that the bags we would be given for waste paper would be robust and would have a flap that could be used to cover the paper when the bag was left out for collection.

Imagine my surprise, then, to receive two small, cheap, plastic sacks. Not only will they take far less paper than the blue bin we were previously using, but the contents will very soon become a soggy mess if it’s raining on collection day.

I also have visions of the countryside littered with them. When I rang the helpline to ask what would be done with them once the bags were emptied, I was told, “Aah, I don’t think they’ve thought about that. I suppose they’ll have to weight them down or something”!

The rationale given for this move to fortnightly collection was that there would be a 50/50 split in the make-up of the refuse, in that at least 50 per cent would be recyclable. However, when you read what can be put into the recycling bin this is clearly not so: only type 1 and 2 plastics are acceptable, for example.

There are many items that are marked as recyclable – plastic food trays, yoghurt pots, butter cartons etc – which Craven seems unable to recycle, so these will have to continue to go into the green bin. It’s perhaps more a 70/30 split then and one that will lead to overflowing green bins now that they will only be emptied once a fortnight.

What an absolute shambles!

Mrs AM Troy, Cowling Hill, Cowling

Cheerleaders

Sir - There must be an election in the offing as cheerleaders for the Conservative Party were out in force in last week’s letters pages.

The letter from Mr Willingham conveniently seeks to sidestep the real issue.

Conservative district councillors have appeared in the Craven Herald with a photograph saying that something should be done about the canal at Niffany Corner. That councillor had forgotten it was his party in power at Northallerton. In 22 months since the first accident, nothing has been done except for North Yorkshire County Council saying they are carrying out a “feasibility study”.

The local Labour party deliberately decided not to make this an issue in the last county council elections out of respect for the bereaved and expecting action after the second tragic accident. How wrong and foolish we were. Now we are just plain angry, impending general election or not.

At least Mr Clark (Letters, February 4) lets us know whom he represents in criticising the Liberal Democrat candidate for the next parliamentary election.

How on earth he or the Liberal Democrat candidate can talk about Skipton education without mentioning the word “selection” is beyond me.

And for Mr Watson to talk of improving the lot of the disadvantaged when it is the low-income parents of Skipton that cannot afford the coaching to get their children into the grammar schools is laughable.

It is his party that buses in the kids from Ilkley to fill up the grammar school places, thereby excluding low-income families.

It would be interesting to know Ms Flynn’s opinion about academic selection as we witness it in Skipton, or should we expect silence?

I wish Mark Glover and the parents of Settle luck in the review of education in North Craven (Letters, January 21). Please be prepared for options for the schools that will only include NYCC’s preferred plan to be fully costed and explained. When they consult, expect only a week for you to get your own opinion together.

The Labour Party may be out of power by the summer, but at least the electorate get to change their national government now and again. We don’t get the same opportunity in North Yorkshire. When the same party is always in power at Northallerton they get complacent and Craven gets ignored.

Graeme Hitchen, Skipton and Ripon Constituency Labour Party member, High Bank, Bradley

Local roots

Sir - I would like to take issue with the local Tory vice-chairman’s assertion (Herald, February 4) that his party’s new parliamentary candidate has “local roots” in Skipton and Ripon.

The small amount of information he has on Tory websites indicates he was raised in Scotland, went to public school in Somerset and now lives in Bow, London, where he owns and runs a recruitment company for major international banks. His business interests are in London (and in Asia) and he lives in London. Common sense would therefore suggest London is, and will remain, his primary residence.

Surely his history as a London city entrepreneur with a multi-national business does not qualify him to represent a rural constituency? Does this matter and do people care? Most definitely yes.

Skipton and Ripon does not need a South-East-based MP. We have done extensive polling in the constituency. Of the voters spoken to (over four weekends in January), over 90 per cent think it “very important” that a candidate has their primary residence in the constituency and, funnily enough, 100 per cent of local Tories who identified themselves thought so too!

They must resent having a London city businessman helicoptered onto them by central office via their “open primary”. So “open” that not one of the 80,000 or so local electorate was good enough to make the shortlist to represent them here.

To add insult to injury, his website this week claims he lives in Skipton. Presumably, therefore, he has sold his London house and business and moved up here with his wife. If not, has no one told him that getting confused about your primary residence can get you into political trouble.

Skipton and Ripon deserves a truly local MP, where he or she can be held to account by voters.

Andrew Rankine, chairman, Skipton and Ripon Liberal Democrats, Aireview Terrace, Skipton

Europe pledge

Sir - Today I received in the mail a copy of “Common Sense” from the Skipton & Ripon Conservative Party featuring prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) Julian Smith and launching their election campaign.

The leaflet contains the usual information to be found in political leaflets with associated photo-ops and a particular emphasis on local issues, particularly getting people into work and promoting local small businesses (NB, leaflet printed in Oxford!) and a list of his pledges.

One pledge, though, was conspicuously absent. At the open primary to select the PPC last September, Mr Smith made much of his Eurosceptism. He pledged to both fight to halt the transferral of further powers to the EU and to return some powers to Westminster.

This pledge resonated with the meeting greatly and drew the biggest applause of the afternoon. How many, I wonder, voted for his selection on this pledge alone?

So maybe he would like to take the opportunity of explaining what has happened to this pledge?

Mr AJA Smith, Colne Road, Glusburn

Dog mess anger

Sir – I have read numerous letters lately complaining about irresponsible dog owners who blatantly thwart the law and don’t clean up after their dogs.

I walk my dog twice daily around the Ginnel and on Millennium Walk and am becoming increasingly frustrated about the amount of dog dirt I come across.

There are two bins within a short distance of each other in this area and still some people think it’s all right to leave their dogs’ mess behind. It isn’t very nice for a conscientious dog owner like myself to step in it while retrieving my own dog’s deposits. Not only that, but to have had my dog stand in another dog’s mess is beyond frustrating.

We are lucky to have such nice surroundings in the heart of town and it’s a great shame that a few unscrupulous owners should spoil things for those of us who take responsibility for our pets, not to mention those who walk through this area and don’t have dogs.

Those who read this and don’t pick up after their animals will know who they are and will hopefully take time to think about it and in future leave the house prepared and do the decent thing.

Miss IA Holbrook, Dawson Street, Skipton

Shoddy work?

Sir - Why is it most potholes seem to be where the roads have been re-surfaced and manhole and drain covers also seem to be affected? I don’t suppose this is due to shoddy workmanship then?

There certainly were a lot of potholes before the snow arrived, so it’s no good blaming it all on the weather.

Another excuse for bumping up the council tax again. Bah humbug.

Malcolm Gill, Tile Close, Skipton

Don’t put Craven Museum at risk

Sir - The Friends of the Craven Museum was formed 40 years ago with the purpose of supporting the museum’s work, so we are very concerned about any plans which affect its future.

We were, therefore, dismayed that one of the options Craven District Council is considering is to sell Skipton Town Hall.

In addition to being a community focal point, the town hall houses the museum, which has many items in its collection with national and local significance. Such a sale would threaten its future.

The museum attracts thousands of visitors from Craven and far afield, it provides important educational facilities and puts on special displays such as the current “It’s About Time” exhibition. The museum is at the centre of Craven’s cultural life.

Of other options for the town hall, we support the concept of its transfer to a trust consisting of Skipton Civic Society and/or Skipton Town Council and/or the Tarn Moor Trust, which we feel will best safeguard the museum and preserve the town hall as a centre of cultural and community activities.

We urge all concerned about the museum and the town hall to make their views known to their elected representatives.

Rosemary Bundy, secretary, Friends of the Craven Museum, Eshton Mews, Eshton