More questions to be answered

Since 1974, the minorities in Bradford District who have a parish council have enjoyed double representation at no cost to themselves. Parish electors have a prominent body to make complaints on their behalf, as well as their numerous district councillors. For Ilkley parish, our decision to have a council has been a costless benefit.

Not any more. Although the administrative cost of Bradford's privileged parishes ultimately falls on all the taxpayers of our country, some people are now asking whether that money could be better spent elsewhere? Which is why Ilkley Parish Council is under public scrutiny.

The Ilkley parish (which also incorporates Menston and Burley) costs our country more than £50,000 a year. For that, our district could have two more teachers or several more home helps for the aged and infirm. Instead, the Ilkley area has a parish council that duplicates the duties of the six district councillors of the Ilkley and Rombalds wards. If that's not enough, we also have two MPs and seven MEPs to call upon.

I suspect that many people would feel happier paying for their own parish council rather than divert scarce resources from the rest of the community. For Ilkley parish, paying for the current administrative load would cost £4 for each household every year. Adding a few modest responsibilities might bring that household charge up to, say, £7.50 per year.

At that price level, our electors' decision to have a parish council would no longer be a costless one. People in Burley and Menston might prefer to have their own independent councils rather than pay for expenditures in Ilkley. After all, there's no knowing what choices would be made if we had to pay for them.

Seven pounds, fifty a year works out at 14 pence a week, and a good deal less than the lowest option provided in the Ilkley Gazette's questionnaire last week. It would provide our areas with £82,500 a year between them.

That's a great deal more responsibility than our parish council has ever wanted to carry before. I am not persuaded that anything more than that would be prudent. At least not until our council had demonstrated its collective ability to manage local projects. Nor do I know what extra services they would supply.

However responsible individual councillors may be, Ilkley Parish Council has no collective experience of managing community resources between competing pressure groups, and under scrutiny. Further, in the 28 years of its existence, Ilkley parish has been under one party rule with no realistic possibility of being overturned.

That presumption of automatic re-election greatly weakens the constraints on how parish finances could be managed. Nevertheless, like others, I'm willing to take the risk of finding out whether our parish council really can look after the community's interests as well as it complains about Bradford Council's work.

Faced with paying for their Parish Council for the first time ever, some other electors might decide that perhaps they didn't need one at all? That would be another interesting question.

Andrew Dundas

2 Pines Cottages,

Parish Ghyll Drive,

Ilkley.

'Come clean' plea

SIR, - I saw a man sweeping the footpath today. No, silly, not with a broom. No employee is allowed to manhandle a broom nowadays in case he gets a hangnail or a touch of back pain leading to an immediate £1 million compensation claim.

The modern method is to use a large and expensive motorised machine, and a very good job it does, too. Called 'The Green Machine' (in spite of it being white!) it purrs along, hoovering up every scrap of dirt with its rotating brushes and leaving a surface you could almost eat from (well, perhaps not quite.)

I know the operator is highly experienced, too, because it is always the same man. In fact, I have wondered once or twice if he is chained to the machine and has to sleep beside it.

The only question I have to ask is this: Why do I always see him polishing and repolishing the Grove or outside the Town Hall until you can almost see your face in it, when there are extensive sections of footpath in Queens Road and Queens Drive (to mention only two) that still have last autumn's leaf fall on them and clearly have not seen hide nor hair (or bristle) of any kind of brush for at least six months.

Is there some factor in this that I have overlooked? Perhaps the driver gets breathless above the 300 foot contour mark, or the machine's carburettor will not work at such a giddy height.

Or perhaps the fuel tank is so small that climbing the hill, that we old fogies gallop up and down every day, would lead to it running dry and becoming a hazard to navigation. I think we should be told.

R A Gurton

28 Queens Road,

Ilkley.

Bloom thanks

SIR, well done Ilkley in Bloom and Addingham in Bloom. As an ex-judge of these competitions, it does show in our area that we have dedicated groups working all year round; which is what it is all about.

Praise must also go to our tiny group of council gardeners and even smaller group of cleaners for their hard work.

Ilkley and Addingham, not forgetting Burley, would not look the way they do if it were not for such hard working volunteers.

To be clean and tidy is vital, otherwise we look a mess. I was amazed that Bradford's idea of encouraging groups to help was by charging £30 for a strip, no wonder Bradford has such a long way to go down this road; and it shows. After all, the volunteers are doing what the council should do anyway. Our roadside verges would never be cleaned if it were not for Ilkley and Addingham in Bloom volunteers.

Good luck, you are doing a great job.

W HEPWORTH

Queens Drive, Ilkley

Welfare call

SIR, - As a local resident and supporter of the NSPCC, I am writing to tell you about the Children's Manifesto. Produced by the NSPCC, Barnardo's and Child Poverty Action Group, this document sets out a blueprint for the Government on children's issues.

In the run-up to the General Election, we read about 'hot' election issues like tax cuts and the question of Europe. But isn't the welfare of our children more important? That's why these charities are asking all Parliamentary candidates to campaign for five specific measures that will help children. These are:

l Independent children's commissioners to be powerful champions for all children in the UK.

l The systematic review of all child deaths to prevent children dying from abuse and neglect.

l The minimum income necessary for all families to ensure the health and well being of children.

l Independent counselling schemes in all schools to provide emotional support for all children who need it.

l The right to an advocate to uphold the interests of children in care.

When candidates come knocking on the door, would readers ask them if they support these measures. Then, find out whether they would be prepared to lobby the Government to turn them into policy. Our children cannot vote, but this election is crucial for them so please will people vote on their behalf.

After all, MPs represent everyone in their constituency - that means children, too. Cruelty to children must stop. Full stop.

Mary Overend

Chairman,

Burley-in-Wharfedale branch,

NSPCC, Moor Lane,

Burley-in-Wharfedale.

Design thanks

SIR, At the recent exhibition held in the Clarke Foley Centre by the Ilkley Design Statement Group we asked those visiting the exhibition to give us their suggestions for buildings and other structures in Ilkley which should be given Listed Building status.

This appeal followed an earlier one reported in the Ilkley Gazette on 1 February this year.

I am pleased to say that the response has been most encouraging, and should like to express the Group's thanks to all those who took the trouble to give us their views on these and other issues.

DAVID CARTWRIGHT

Chairman,

Ilkley Design Statement Group

Stealth tax

SIR, -Your elderly readers living in local sheltered housing should be warned of another 'stealth tax' dreamed up by Customs and Excise.

It proposes to make the elderly pay VAT on the services of their house manager or warden, hitting many thousands of people, often living on fixed incomes, in sheltered housing developments.

The burden would fall individually on residents in privately-managed developments while, in any local authority schemes affected, council tax payers will have to pick up the bill. We understand that some housing association schemes may also suffer the tax.

The Government has already performed a similar squeeze on the elderly by ending tax relief on certain types of investment income. As with much back door taxation, the issues are so complex that they gain little media attention.

VAT on the manager's salary is another example of the Chancellor picking elderly people's pockets in a manner it hopes no-one will notice.

We calculate that, in a typical development of 50 flats, each resident will be at least £40 per year worse off by having to share the cost of this new VAT burden - a total of more than £2,000 per development going straight to the Exchequer.

McCarthy and Stone, as the country's largest provider of private sheltered housing, goes to great lengths to keep costs under control to ensure a fair charge for on-site services like the house manager, gardener, maintenance team, laundry, security systems and lifts. Expenditure is explained in detail to every resident and their requirements taken into account.

But with taxation there is no choice, no negotiation and no escape.

We have spent the last five months challenging this tax but obviously the temptation of such easy pickings is too much of the Chancellor. The increase in state pension has received a lot of publicity; few people are aware that he is already snatching two months' worth of it back from our residents.

Surely the Chancellor has enough funds from all his other taxes without hitting the retired in this way. I hope he will reconsider this shameful attack on the elderly.

KEITH LOVELOCK

Chief Executive,

McCarthy and Stone.

Carnegie Court,

Ilkley.

Grateful

SIR, - I would like to thank two very kind people who picked up the lost purse outside Ilkley Post Office and handed it in over the counter.

This was very much appreciated.

Mrs B Patchett

17 Spa Apartments,

The Grove, Ilkley.