Letters to the Editor

SIR, - I am writing to express my deep concern about the current proposals for an Otley bypass. Is this really a plan for a bypass or a ploy by the city council to fulfil its housing quota at Otley's expense?

In order to pay for the bypass a large residential and industrial estate will be built on green belt land adjacent to the proposed road. The bypass will link the roundabout on Leeds road to a roundabout near Stephen Smith's.

It will be on a steep incline with two additional roundabouts to serve the housing and industrial development. Any benefit derived from the bypass will be completely negated by the increase in traffic generated by the new development.

Goods drivers will avoid the steep road with its roundabouts, choosing the easier way through the town.

Access to the development area is very poor meaning that the bypass will have to serve as an access road. Using a bypass as a main access road for housing and industry is fraught with potential road traffic problems and dangers.

The Environment Agency web site shows that the new development will be adjacent to or within the flood plain. That most of the services will be well below the water table is of particular concern in relation to sewage, where any leakage will quickly contaminate a large area.

The bypass will also cut across the flood plain of the river, effectively forming a dam to natural drainage. It will also form a bowl that will collect rainwater run off from the Chevin, causing a particular threat to the existing Cambridge estate.

The development may well cause the water table to rise increasing the risk of flooding in other parts of Otley. This would impact on insurance costs across the town.

The schools, doctors, dentist and other services in Otley are currently at full capacity. The effect on local services of 800 new homes, many of which will house families with school age children and have more than one car, will only increase the problems already experienced when trying to see a doctor, etc.

The road and transport system in what is a relatively narrow space between the Chevin and the river are already over burdened. Adding more commuters will only make matters worse. If Otley is to have a bypass, it needs one that will relieve the strain on the town not one that will increase the problems it currently faces.

The old railway line follows an ideal route, but, unlike the proposals, would be less useful for housing and industrial development.

John Buck

55 Danefield Terrace,

Otley.

Setting a target

SIR, - Re affordable homes and the East of Otley Relief Road:

Councillor Clive Fox (Con) attacked me as the Labour chairman of Otley Town Council Planning Committee for seeking 75 per cent affordable homes in the new development. This committee made a thoughtful, and almost unanimous, response to the UDP consultation.

The voting for the response was Labour 3, Liberals 3, Conservative 1, with the other Conservative against. The Town Council proposed a target figure of 75 per cent affordable housing. The point of any negotiation is to set a high target, and hope that you win a higher figure than a developer would offer. Clive Fox's tactic is to accept gratefully whatever a developer would offer. People who were at the public meeting protesting at the lorry traffic coming down Newall Carr will remember him saying that a lorry ban would be impracticable, because the hauliers would not accept it as it would increase their costs by avoiding Otley. Reports in this paper the following week stated that a lorry ban might well be achieved.

Clive Fox said that 75 per cent affordable housing would be well beyond what would be needed by the people of Otley, and would 'mean that huge numbers of people currently on waiting lists around Leeds coming into Otley'.

Mick Johnson last week pointed out that "Otley had the second highest council waiting list in the Leeds area. How would these houses alleviate that? Can the houses be kept for a proportion of Otley residents only?"

It is obvious that building these houses would alleviate the Otley waiting list. If some of the houses were built for a Housing Association it should be possible to reach agreement that Otley people should have a high priority on the list.

Equally, if some of these houses were built for sale as low cost housing there are already mechanisms available to ensure that they remain as low cost houses for local workers in the future. The town council called for this in its response.

If there are any houses left after that then they would be available for people with housing needs from outside Otley. Are Messrs Fox and Johnson saying that only rich people from outside Otley able to afford higher priced houses should be allowed to buy in Otley, and keep the unwashed poor out?

Or should we prevent any outsiders from buying any of these homes, and keep Otley for the Otliensians? I think we should be told.

GERALD McGOWAN

15 Queen's Place,

Otley.

Call for new hall

SIR, - I read with interest your article about the problems with the Otley Civic Centre. Rightly or wrongly, I have the impression that many communities in the south of this country enjoy much more modern concert halls than we have here. In that context, Otley, Yeadon and Guiseley are, to put it kindly, substandard.

In one aspect alone - that of safety - I always get a feeling of unease at some point in a performance when upstairs at these venues. My ideal solution would be for Leeds City Council to sell all three and use the proceeds towards building a decent, modern concert hall somewhere in the area.

The people of north-west Leeds, who support so well productions by the many local societies, could then hear good professional, as well as amateur performances of music and drama. Grants should surely be available to facilitate this enterprise.

That last word is a key word; it would literally mean that the Leeds city councillors would have to make the considerable effort needed to do something worthwhile for their citizens living on the outskirts whose votes at times do not seem to count for much.

J A Heaton (Mr)

49 Ings Lane,

Guiseley.

Let's be friendly

SIR, - In 2003 we all face uncertainty (apparently) and ever increasing pressures on our time and finances.

George Bush wants war, Gordon Brown wants more and local politics is one big bore with the electorate hanging up on local telephone canvassers, and the Reverend Tony Blair's national sermons of gloom being met with as much enthusiasm as Ian Duncan Smith's 'quiet man' sales pitch.

Every single individual, couple, family etc should make \ lot more effort this year to concentrate on making life better in their own street and town. Little things like, not doing anything possible to avoid passing the time of day with one or all of the neighbours, or how about shaking off the tag 'no chatting to each other, we're British' in the long, dull supermarket checkout queues?

There are so many people who can't even be bothered to interact with each other, on any level. Walk into some pubs and the piano stops. It's like the League of Gentlemen. 'Are you local? It seems these days we'd rather be insular and pretentious rather than open and friendly.

There are many Otley folk who are lovely people and the salt of the earth, but there's a new breed who seem to be so wrapped up in themselves, they can't see a community around them or a town that needs them to integrate more, rather than been just a housing statistic.

Otley should be less small minded and more open to the possibilities of having better relationships with itself and its people. We could start by making an effort this year.

Nigel Gill

Ramsey Terrace,

Otley.