Councillor is out of touch on industry Councillor Anne Hawkesworth is out of touch on plans for jobs and industry in Ilkley Can I register how disappointed I was to read that Coun Hawkesworth has dismissed out of hand the proposal to create a ten hectare site near Ilkley for industry and jobs.

I cannot help but feel that Coun Hawkesworth has shown herself to be devastatingly out of touch with reality and, particularly with the unemployed, and specifically within this group, the young unemployed.

Putting aside the fact that she is seeking to oppose, and encouraging Ilkley Parish Council to oppose, a Conservative National Planning Framework that places the emphasis on sustainable development, it is sad that Coun Hawkesworth can only think of Ilkey as solely a sepia place for retail and tourism.

Ilkley already has a wealth of strong businesses and industries outside of this sector, including NG Bailey, Spooner and Virtual College.

The town is and can be, an attractive proposition for innovators and investors, boasting a well educated population, with excellent local services and amenities, and good transport links.

A growing and diverse local economy should be something that Coun Hawkesworth aspires to see for Ilkley, not one that she rejects as a bad fit.

For the youth unemployed and families with children looking for work, it serves as a kick in the teeth.

Though figures to the end of August showed 991,000 young people unemployed, with 8,000 more becoming unemployed each week, the one million mark will now have been passed.

The Conservative-led Coalition has already placed so many obstacles in front of those seeking work in Ilkley and the surrounding area, and those who will in the coming years.

This ranges from the trebling of tuition fees, the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance and abolition of the Future Jobs Fund (a scheme not only aiming at the under-25s, but the long-term unemployed as a whole), to the halting of Building Schools for the Future.

This should be a source of shame for the country and to oppose job creation in the town because it does not suit an out-dated view of Ilkley and, indeed Britain, is plain wrong. The presence of a non-growth Conservative Party in Westminster seems to have prompted Coun Hawkesworth to follow this lead on a local level. It is scarring to be in the jobs market in a recession but this is not something that the out of touch Coun Hawkesworth can recognise.

Thomas Atkinson

Secretary, Ilkley Labour Party