Too many concessions are made to developers

My major concern is that there are too many concessions made to developers to maximise their profits by allowing so much development to go ahead on green fields when there is so many derelict brownfield sites all around Leeds and Otley.

This is totally disgraceful and I feel that the elected government is to blame by relaxing planning restrictions and trying to build our way out of a recession. I would therefore like to ask our MP Mr Mulholland to get behind the concerned Otley residents (of which there are many) and support us in our objections. I am not against development but I do not agree with any action on green fields until ALL brownfield sites have been used. I urge Mr Mulholland to push to remove the VAT on these sites to make them more appealing to developers and sort out our wishy-washy planning laws so that these brownfield sites cannot be overlooked in preference for green fields.

I love our green and pleasant land and want it to stay that way; yes we all have to live somewhere so use brown field sites first. Also, the planners do not seem to have looked at the impact of housing in the Ilkley etc areas and how this will impact on the A660. There are many issues here and I feel that we have a right to have proper involvement now as the Neighbourhood Plan may be too late.

I would like Leeds City Council, together with Greg Mulholland, to hold a public meeting in Otley to look at these site allocations, potential numbers and infrastructure and allow our views to be heard. I understand that there is another meeting for the ODD group soon and more details can be found on: otley developmentdisgrace.webs.com.

Caroline Davis, Moor Drive, Otley

It’s clear that this transport cuts decision is a mistake

I am glad that Councillor Jackie Whiteley has spoken out about the ludicrous decision by the Labour executive on Bradford Council. By removing ‘discretion’ when considering applications for free school transport, half the children in Burley-in-Wharfedale are likely to receive no help, despite living over three miles from any school! This is the distance over which free transport is provided.

I am bemused as to why this decision has been taken without considering the effect on some areas of the district. By saying that unless children go to their nearest school they won’t get any help, on a technicality, they will deny help to some families in our village. Half the village is nearer to Ilkley Grammar School and half to Guiseley School but our primary schools are feeder schools for Ilkley Grammar and they automatically get a place there as the nearest secondary school in the Bradford Metropolitan District.

I am sure that people in Burley-in- Wharfedale would like to have their say on this matter and so I have registered a petition on Bradford Council’s website.

If you would like to sign the petition you can find copies in shops and cafes around the village.

I hope Bradford Council will reconsider their decision because it’s clear they have made a mistake. I would hate to think that this cost-cutting exercise is deliberately and needlessly making life difficult for hard-working families in Burley-in-Wharfedale.

Gerry Barker, Burley-in-Wharfedale

Time has now arrived for Council to be disbanded

The time has now arrived for Bradford MDC to be disbanded and formed into at least two parts and a new District Council for Airedale and Wharfedale established, as soon as this can be achieved.

Not only has the present Bradford Council leader David Green and the 90 councillors who sit in the chamber at City Hall got an onerous task in cutting expenditure by £37 million in 2014-15, but the present proposals for how these budget cuts fall upon Ilkley and the other local districts of Addingham, Burley-in-Wharfedale and wider afield are both indiscriminate and unfair.

An example is the cut to school transport provisions being made to faith schools hereabouts and to Catholic schools in particular. We must regain control over our council taxes and how the priorities for expenditure are set. This can only be achieved by electing our own team of councillors to sit on a new council, who will have responsibility for these duties, not Bradford MDC.

Our council tax gathered in Ilkley has been used largely to maintain and support the inner city areas of the metropolitan borough, together with the central government grant allocated annually.

With a new District Council comprising Ilkley, Keighley, Addingham, Burley-in-Wharfedale, together with Menston, Bingley and Shipley, sufficient council tax revenue will flow in to avoid the need for any central government grant and the severe austerity measures being imposed upon our local services, facilities and amenities. We shall be able to decide on how and where our council taxes are being spent. What is more both Kris Hopkins MP and Philip Davies MP have declared their support for such a change in our local government.

Paul Latham, Ilkley Ward Candidate, UK Independence Party

What rail traffic without the axe of Dr Beeching?

In his most interesting letter of March 14, your correspondent Peter Settle, commenting on the photograph of Brook Street (Across the Years, February 13), makes mention of the railway, observing that the ‘old embankment’ is in place at the far end of the car park.

Indeed, pictured approximately where the Clarke Foley Centre is situated today, are the remains of an elevated structure which, prior to closure (1965) and subsequent demolition, had crossed above the car park and, via a bridge over Brook Street, joined up with the station.

Thus, trains were able to progress westwards, leaving Ilkley by a 25-arch viaduct, to Addingham, Bolton Abbey, Embsay, Skipton and connections beyond; and, of course, in the reverse direction also.

One can but speculate if Doctor Beeching had not wielded his axe, just how much traffic – passenger and goods – would be making use of the route today? Superb photographs, supplied by former Ilkley signalman FW Smith, of the railway bridge over Brook Street, are contained in Railways Through Airedale and Wharfedale, by Martyn Bairstow.

Gerald Myers, Tranmere Park, Guiseley

Listed building is a special part of our national heritage

We, as affected residents who live opposite Burley House in Burley-in-Wharfedale, wish to raise our concerns with people in Burley over a proposal at Burley House to divide the main house into apartments and provide new housing within its grounds.

Burley House is a grade I-listed building and is therefore very special as part of our national heritage; in this context, the setting is just as important as the house itself. We applaud the efforts of the former Burley Community Council for saving Burley House Fields from housing development to create a public open space for villagers to enjoy.

In addition, through the efforts of the same community council, a new village green was formed that contributes handsomely to the group of listed cottages opposite, and fronting Main Street. Both these additional areas of public open space further enhance the setting of Burley House, and we don’t wish to see those efforts jeopardised through new house building.

We feel that this scheme is not only detrimental to the setting of Burley House, but destroys the integrity of the interior of the building through sub-division into apartments. In order to achieve the building of four proposed town houses in the tree-lined garden adjoining the village green, the developers propose to demolish a grade II-listed structure and remove many trees, all protected as part of the Burley Conservation Area.

They also propose two new contemporary style dwellings facing on to Burley House. These represent an intrusive element in this important setting. We are concerned that our local heritage, that has a high level of protection through listing and conservation area status, could be compromised through such an insensitive proposal on a site of national and local importance We urge others in the village, that hold their heritage dear, to raise their voices by making comments on Bradford Council’s website or contacting either a parish councillor or their ward councillor urgently.

Jeffrey and Linda McQuillan, Nigel and Sue Roberts, Burley-in-Wharfedale

I remember all the good my dad did during his life

In the wake of the passing of my beloved Dad, Tony Ackroyd, last month on March 5 and following the article in the Ilkley Gazette published March 13, sharing his involvement in the Wharfedale/Ilkley Moor Lions Club, I have been reminded of the other great attributes my Dad procured and the lives he touched, which led to his wonderful, bustling send off on Friday, March 14.

As I reflect, I remember all the good he did during his life: the numerous activities he participated in; the support and time he gave to charities; the help he gave to his friends; his passion for Spanish and French; the general ‘joie de vivre’ he displayed incessantly.

He was truly an exceptional role model to his family and to society. I had always, therefore, been firmly convinced that it would be a struggle to fit everyone into the building at his funeral.

His ‘Adios’ service was held at Skipton Crematorium and, sure enough, more than 200 people attended; people whose lives he had touched in one positive form or another. The funeral director later told me that in all his years of holding services at Skipton, he had never seen the crematorium so densely populated. My Dad was an avid cyclist and tennis player.

If you didn’t have the pleasure of meeting him on the tennis courts at Ilkley Lawn Tennis Club, or down Brook Street with his Lions caravan, or at a local gala manning his Utility Warehouse purple pig stall, you may still have seen him cycling past your garden fence.

He was a wonderful character in so many ways as well as being, of course, a superb dad and I, along with everyone else who knew him, will never cease to miss him.

I wrote a poem for my Dad, but time constraints and other factors beyond my control meant it couldn’t be shared at his actual funeral service. As Dad meant so much to me I would like to share the poem with you all now, my intention being to leave a lasting smile on your face, just as Dad did for us…

Dad, you were different in many unique ways

Your precious, quirky ‘Tony-isms’ which saw you through your days

Your cheerful, upbeat outlook, your loud & frightening sneeze

Your jokes, your gestures, your strength; your will to do as you please!

So it’s ‘Game Set & Match dear Dad!

A game, “jolly well played!”

Now rest & take your “40 winks”;

we’ll all smile fondly, as you lay.

We’ll all raise a glass, or rather a “nice cup of tea”

in your wonderful, beloved memory,

Today we will celebrate your eventful life with....

Your friends, your family, your children

and last but not least, with Brenda, your wife.

‘Adios’ our charming ‘Mr Bean!’

We will miss you so much from our ‘Ackroyd’ team!

God Bless you Dad! We love you.

Tony Ackroyd 22.10.1934 – 05.03.2014

Kates Ives, Ben Rhydding