IT WOULD be a real tragedy if pleasure boats disappeared for ever from the river at Otley. For decades the boats at Wharfemeadows Park have been a crowd puller - not only for Otley people, but for the thousands of visitors who go to the park every year.

They are also a reminder of the time when the park was even more of a leisure attraction; when bands regularly attracted hundreds on summer afternoons. The boats' first appearance at Easter has become traditional - Otley's official start of the holiday season. But not this year.

Last year, they fell victim to the foot and mouth epidemic, like so many other leisure activities. But this year, they've fallen victim to Leeds City Council - and the failure of two departments to get their acts together early enough. Because of 'discussions' going on between the leisure services section and the council's property wing, a contract has yet to be drawn up. And because no contract has been drawn up, anyone keen to operate the boats hasn't been given a chance to tender.

It's a pathetic state of affairs - to suddenly wake up days before Easter and remember the boats and that just perhaps people might want to use them. And what about the crumbling landing stage - left half-repaired after last year's half-hearted attempt to make it safe.

One wonders if anyone from two departments involved has any interest at all in Otley - they certainly have no interest in seeing boats back on the river this year.

l It would be another sad loss if Otley tobacconist James Barber was forced out of the town because of new advertising laws. His shop is one of the few runaway successes in the town - cigar smokers all over the world know the name of Otley.

Whatever we might think of cigarette smoking and the effect advertising may or may not have on impressionable young people, surely tackling the vast amounts of illegally smuggled tobacco brought into the country would be a better way forward than stopping internet advertising.

It hardly has the same glamorous connections as motor racing.