Letters to the Editor (From Ilkley Gazette)

Letters to the Editor

3:20pm Friday 31st August 2012 in Local news

Concern over planning process on chapel

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth is right. Bradford’s planning department can be dysfunctional – especially when it makes the effort to be so.

People who objected to another application to establish business premises in Ilkley Cemetery South Chapel have been given a clear example of that. The legal situation is that Church Measure (1991-1) governs the use of the chapel, and is within the jurisdiction of the judge who is Diocesan Chancellor for the chapel. Bradford Council planning seeks to ignore that.

On August 21, the applicant withdrew the recent full application which sets out in detail what was proposed to turn the South Chapel into business premises. With that, all the objections made by people living in Ilkley and District were immediately expunged from the ‘public access’ planning website. So they are no longer publicly accessible as evidence. That is biased against the visitors to the graves who have expressed their offence at the proposals, which is their right under the Law. The Council has admitted that it is aware of that right but seeks to ignore it.

Without that withdrawal, the objections and the legal right of visitors not to be offended by “any use” would have gone to the planning panel in a public meeting open to all of us. Not now.

Full application is the major and required application for proposals for a building. Withdrawal of it means that any ancillary application is also withdrawn. In this case the ancillary application was for a listed building not to be treated as a listed building. But three days later on August 24, the same Council planning officer receiving the withdrawal states that the officer approves the ancillary application. The ancillary listed building consent application lists exactly the same alterations as were listed in the withdrawn full application. That officer states that because the ancillary (LBC) application has been approved by that officer, it will not go before a planning panel of councillors. On e-mailing that officer I learn that officer is now away on leave for eight days.

So what do you think is going on? Consider: the full application is withdrawn; it can be re-submitted – but only by the normal process involving 21 days notice and public objection – instead it is replaced by a single council officer approving an ancillary application with the same building alterations as are in the withdrawn full application, and the objections by local people are expunged from public access.

I think that this action is to be opposed and made public.

Edwin Schirn, Ilkley

US visitor touched by kindness of townsfolk

I was visiting from the States to see my father in Leeds and came to Ilkley on Monday for lunch with relatives.

We enjoyed an ice cream sitting in the sun on a bench in the Grove.

However, unfortunately, we left our Bettys bag under the bench but we were reunited with this later thanks to a kind person having returned the bag to Bettys.

Then following shopping at Booths I managed to leave my handbag on the shopping trolley and was very fortunate once again to have a kind person take this into the store.

I wish to say a big thank-you to both these unknown people for their acts of great kindness which are so very much appreciated and for your readers to know of my good fortune when visiting your town of Ilkley.

I return home to the States with very happy memories.

J Boots, USA

‘Model looks’ are not all they’re made up to be

While having coffee in an Ilkley cafe this week I couldn’t help notice the effort young girls take in their appearance.

I felt sympathy with the peer pressure they must feel to be unnaturally tanned, false eyelashed and straightened/highlighted/ringletted hair. Presumably this is for the attention of the opposite sex.

It started me wondering if these young women are trying to meet the ideals of young men who have grown up on a diet of internet pornography.

Who can blame teenage pubescent males fuelled by their burgeoning sex hormones, being drawn like stupefied zombies towards their computer screens and watching the tantalising scenes before them.

It must be demoralising for regular girls to know they can never fully compete with a fictionalised fantasy Barbie-like woman.

Dr M Barrett, Ben Rhydding Drive, Ilkley

Museum book reveals real printing press story

Further to John Morgan’s disappointment at the missing information about Otley’s printers’ engineers on the plaque in Wharfemeadows, it is even more disconcerting that the real printing machine had been on public display since September 14, 1967, in the Mechanics’ Institute until the building’s closure.

Paul Wood’s Otley And the Wharfedale Printing Machine reveals the actual story behind the development of this printing press.

The booklet – based on the definitive archive collection in Otley Museum – is available from Otley Museum and local bookshops (see picture on facing page).

Christine Dean, Garnett Street, Otley

Disabled children may lose out in benefit move

As the Coalition Government introduces changes to the benefits system, Contact a Family – the only UK charity that supports families with a disabled child whatever their condition or disability – is worried that local families could be missing out on the financial support they are entitled to.

Additional costs in transport, heating, special food and clothing means it costs around three-times more to raise a disabled child.

This is on top of the difficulty of combining caring and working.

Research we recently carried out shows that a quarter of families with disabled children are going without food and a third without heating because they cannot afford it.

Many are extremely worried about how planned Government benefit and welfare changes will impact on their families’ income. Despite changes to many benefits, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for children from birth to 15 remains the same. DLA is designed to help cover some of the additional costs of disability and is often the ‘passport’ to other sources of financial help. DLA can make a real difference to your family’s income but many don’t claim this benefit because they don’t know they are entitled.

The Department for Work and Pensions has recently introduced a new form for families to claim this benefit for their disabled child and Contact a Family has produced a free information guide detailing how to fill the new form in. Call our freephone helpline on 0808 808 3555 or email helpline@cafamily.org.uk to order a copy today.

Using Contact a Family’s new guide can increase the likelihood of your child being awarded the right level of DLA and means you won’t miss out on vital extra income - more important than ever in the current economic climate.

For more information about Contact a Family, visit cafamily.org.uk

Srabani Sen, Chief executive Contact a Family, 209-2011 City Road, London EC1V 1JN

‘Well done’ to summer festival organising team

I would like, through your paper, to thank Jo Griffiths, Sylvia Tilford and all their team for a fantastic summer festival.

The Burley in Wharfedale Summer Festival has once again been a tremendous success with a variety of events which have been well supported, despite the often disappointing weather.

A big thank-you and well done to everyone involved!

Tom Sumner MBE