No assessment made of new housing impact on Otley infrastructure

In 2005 the A660 was threatened with the additional traffic resulting from just 550 houses. At the time the independent UDP inspector wrote: “I am more concerned about the additional traffic on the A660 generated from East of Otley…there would be a significant impact on the route into Leeds, which is already congested at peak times.

“The projected increase in traffic… would be likely to exacerbate the difficulty of accessing Leeds on the journey to work. Whilst the relief road would bring some benefit in reducing traffic through Otley, the associated development would carry some ‘dis-benefits’, not least additional congestion on the A660.”

The threat now is from the construction of more than twice as many houses. Additionally, the relief road will provide access to sand and gravel deposits just to the east of Otley, allowing up to 1.6 million tonnes of gravel to be transported by lorries up the A660 into Leeds.

All of Otley’s infrastructure is threatened because no assessment has been made of the impact of the proposed housing developments on our infrastructure.

If you share these concerns, please sign the petition which is accessible via tinyurl.com/poauxp2.

It reads: “We object most strongly to the substantial increase in houses in Otley (some 20 per cent) implicit in the new Leeds Local Development Framework, particularly as this planned increase arises from individual housing sites without any consideration of the overall effect on the community.”

Alastair Watson, Elm Terrace, Otley

Parish precept situation is almost an exact re-run

I was very surprised to read your report regarding a 22 per cent increase in the precept charged by Ilkley Parish Council.

This is almost an exact re-run of the situation two years ago when the parish council increased the precept by 19 per cent.

Then, as now, the justification was that it was for “ a one-off event (then the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee), and in any case the Band D precept only went up by two or three pounds.” I was serving on the Parish Council at that time and could not believe what I was hearing. Here we had a council proposing an inflation-busting increase whilst every public body in the country – hospitals, schools, local authorities, civil service, armed services, police etc – were being exhorted by the government to contain costs and minimise increases to the public purse and hence the taxpayer. The government even introduced legislation in the Localism Act to enforce a referendum if local councils put up their council tax by more than two per cent. Unfortunately, it does not apply to parish councils!

However, for some reason, Ilkley Parish Council did not believe that these constraints applied to them and believed they should maintain their current expenditure whilst adding in new projects such as the Diamond Jubilee.

At that time, I argued the case that in the present economic climate applying an increase of more than two per cent was insensitive, irresponsible, but most of all unnecessary. Most of the expenditure at Ilkley Parish Council is discretionary. The council makes awards to clubs, societies and various other bodies who apply. Most of these bodies are well supported by their members and are well able to raise money themselves. Consequently, the council should not be obliged to maintain the status quo, year on year, with these bodies, but prioritise its projects in the light of changing demands and requirements.

In 2012, I considered that the council had more than enough in its budget to cover the Jubilee with virtually no increase in the precept. I was unable to persuade my then colleagues on the council and I decided at that point my position on the council was untenable, and I resigned. Although the Jubilee was stated to be a one-off, the money added to the budget to cover it was kept in the subsequent financial year, 2013/2014. Lo and behold, we now have another one-off project, the Tour de France, which also requires additional expenditure A quick ‘back of the envelope’ calculation suggests that my local precept will have gone up by 48 per cent from when this parish council took office in May 2011, through to April 2014 when this latest increase will take effect. No commercial organisation could get away with increasing its costs so arbitrarily to its customers and get away with it.

Fortunately, this is beginning to apply more and more in the public sector, but not, it would seem, to Ilkley Parish Council.

I am certainly not against spending money on high-profile projects such as the Jubilee, the Tour de France, the Christmas lights and supporting the LDF project for example, the latter two being very ably driven by two of my former colleagues.

What I do think we should have at Ilkley Parish Council is grown up financial management and control and an ability to operate within a reasonably tight budget.

I hope the readers of this letter agree with this sentiment and if so I would exhort them to write to the council asking them to reconsider this proposal and come up with a realistic budget for their activities.

Richard Reed, Queens Road, Ilkley

Cherry-picking numbers to make political point is easy

I write in response to Councillor Sandy Lay’s disappointing letter on these pages last week. The issue raised was our recent Otley Town Council Budget.

Coun Lay once again demonstrates that it is extremely easy to cherry-pick numbers and present them in an unfavourable light.

Gordon Brown was – and George Osborne is – a master at making statistics dance and say whatever is needed to make a political point. I don’t think it is honest to do that.

I will give you one example from Coun Lay’s letter to prove the point. His remarks that we are predicting less income from the toilets this year than expected – he is trying to suggest that the new toilets in Orchard Gate are a failure.

What Coun Lay mischievously fails to mention is that early last year we decided to delay renovating the toilets. So, rather than refurbishing them in April, they were delayed until December. This was so that the toilets would not be closed for refurbishment during Otley’s busier tourist season.

I think most reasonable people will agree that the success of the new toilets in Orchard Gate can surely only be judged from when they were actually opened… and the new toilets simply didn’t exist for the first eight-nine months of the financial year.

I don’t have space in this letter to rebut in detail all of Coun Lay’s accusations from last week.

Neither do I want to cherry-pick my own favourable statistics and shout them out at the top of my voice. Instead, I believe we should all consider the choice we have.

The truth is that the Labour Party believes in people making a little bit of an extra contribution – roughly around £1 per person in Otley every year. While we agonise over every penny, we think this modest contribution can be spent wisely for the betterment of people in Otley. Just look at what we’ve done over the last three years – Otley Core, the new toilets, the ‘Voice Your Choice’ public vote and many other achievements of which we are extremely proud.

If you believe that raising a little bit of extra money to invest in Otley is wrong, then we have a difference of opinion and I can respect that. But let’s have a real debate based on the facts, rather than a shouting match designed to muddy the waters in an effort to win a vote or two.

Councillor Carl Morris (Labour, Manor)

Thanks for helping my son after motorcycle accident

On behalf of my son, may I thank everyone who came to his aid after he was knocked off his motorbike on Thursday, especially the anaesthetist on her way home from Airedale, a doctor who stopped, and a kind young lady who rang me and put a cover over him from her car. A big thank you to the emergency services and LGI.

Jenny Newell, West Terrace, Burley-in-Wharfedale

Short-term monetary gain is over-ruling preservation

Do recent remarks from Kris Hopkins MP on the Government’s housebuilding programme, reported in last week’s Wharfedale Observer, lend credence to Lord Acton’s contention that “power corrupts”?

It seems to me that we are very fortunate that Mr Hopkins does not have absolute power.

Before being bumped up to Housing Minister we may all have thought he was on the side of the residents of Wharfedale in opposing destruction of our beautiful valley and its towns and villages.

Now he seems to have joined ‘Concrete’ Boles’s bully boys, short-term monetary gain over-ruling long-term preservation of what makes Yorkshire so desirable for future generations. Of course we need more houses, but of the right kind in the ‘right’ places.

The thought of Balls running the economy fills me with dread, but I’d prefer it to the destruction of the quality of life which Cameron and his rich, would-be richer, gang seem intent upon while protesting the opposite.

Unfortunately, listening to Miliband on Look North this week, new ‘Labour’ would go down just the same path.

Roger Livesey, Menston