Readers' Letters

The social, economic and environmental desecration of this area by Bradford politicians needs to be stopped and if at all possible, reversed.

Many people believe that what is needed in the Worth Valley is a pause for up to five years on large housing and retail developments.

A pause to get our breath back so as to plan for a better environment.

The present planning procedures have repeatedly been shown to be against local public interest. Development in Haworth, for instance, should be delayed until Haworth Parish Council, the Haworth Village Design Statement and the Vision for Haworth documents sees light of day.

If the houses Bradford Council has programmed for the Worth Valley in its current U.D.P. and the following U.D.P. are built, it is feared children of most age groups will experience difficulty in gaining entry to schools in existing catchment areas.

Housing development in Oakworth, as in all other areas, is straining the present drainage capacity. Health risk of this situation is not being addressed. Let's pause for breath; let's plan for the future, now. The problem is that the planners and the politicians have not properly thought about what sympathetic development means.

We need a pause while the authorities are encouraged to rebuild the region with a visionary and radical road system with which to cope with the increased traffic problems past planning has produced.

The road system in this region is acknowledged to be choked and chaotic and is known to be heading for gridlock. Road rage is a phenomenon, now unfortunately an accepted part of travel, within the district. Let's have a breath of fresh air and challenge the party politicians to put people before politics.

DAVID SAMUELS,

Prospective

Independent Councillor.

SIR - I can fully understand the frustration of your correspondent Andrew Steele regarding the 17.50 Kings Cross to Keighley rail service.

The reason is simple; computers are logical but stupid.

One would hope that the Travel Centre staff who use them would show a little more human flexibility but this is not always the case.

When asked for a train service between any two points, the computer will always offer the quickest journey and the 18.00 Kings Cross to Glasgow, changing at Doncaster for Leeds and Keighley, will give an overall journey time of 2 hours 39 mins.

If the computer is asked the same question with the instruction "No changes" typed in, then the 17.50 Kings Cross to Keighley will be shown, but the overall journey time is marginally longer at 2 hrs 49 mins; the reason being that the 17.50 direct train calls at Peterborough, Grantham, Retford and Doncaster, whereas the 18.00 Glasgow train runs non-stop to Doncaster, passing the 17.50 en route.

Mr Steele should not fear the withdrawal of the direct train as GNER has just announced (and the Keighley News has reported) the success of the first six months of operation of the direct train.

I will however bring Mr Steele's justifiable complaint concerning the Telephone Line service to the attention of GNER headquarters.

R G MITCHELL

Project Officer,

Keighley Business Forum.

SIR - Tom Smith in his column (March 26) makes a tenuous statement suggesting Bradford Council needs to address its educational policy, or the Secretary of State for Education may possibly intervene, locating Bradford's education programme within the private sector.

His comment has merit. Over the past sixteen years Bradford has presided over a steady decline of educational standards.

It has been established that less money per pupil per school is dispersed in the Worth Valley than in Bradford inner city schools.

However, educational standards in the Worth Valley are consistently of a higher average than that of Bradford. I believe people's fear is that even with £170,000,000 of public money Bradford's efforts will 'dumb down' this region's educational standards to those of Bradford.

After implementation, the new schools policy will create a shortfall of 202 school places for children within this region.

A larger problem is Bradford's future planning.

It has a housing policy that encourages thousands of families to move to this area even though impending school provision is recognised as being unable to cope with the present new pupil intake let alone further admissions.

Finally, John Fryett's comments in this newspaper states the Keighley News coverage of the educational issue 'is long on emotion and short on facts.' From him such remarks are whimsical to say the least.

Many people fighting to save schools in this region will tell Mr Fryett that extracting facts from Bradford Council was and is a 'Mission Impossible.' Where were Mr Fryett and his two political stalwarts, Cllr Young and Cllr Cope, when facts and answers from Bradford Education Department were denied the public?

Electors realise that on the education subject the coverage from the Keighley News was, as always, truth and fact, words, Bradford Council is alleged to play fast and loose with.

MRS R BLACKMAN ,

Prince Street, Haworth.

SIR - In heaven's name, has not this country suffered enough from war, without this so called New Labour government trying to take on the impossible of trying to convince the world that they and they alone have the problematic answers that divide the hundreds of opposing cultures that exist throughout the world.

Why do we have to bear the cost in material and lives just to prove that Tony Blair, the minister for war and the foreign secretary are the re-incarnation of the three wise men? Based upon their performance to date, I wouldn't buy a second hand car off them.

The war in Kosova is a civil war and it has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing. The Albanian immigrants have been allowed to build up to such an extent, they now want to take over the territory which by right belongs to Serbia and not to Tony Blair.

If it is right to bomb Serbia for resisting the takeover, then should NATO bomb Britain and the Northern Ireland protestants in favour of the IRA.

You cannot have your cake and eat it. As for the so called atrocities, please let us grow up. All war is a combination of atrocities, each one being as ruthless as possible in order to make the other submit.

The sooner one side submits, the sooner the killing stops.

Not in the history of warfare has airpower alone won a battle, basically wars are the business of groundforces. Airpower is just a handy tool, it give assistance.

Although we cannot win with bombing, we can certainly kill with bombing. In fact we cannot avoid it. With nothing to gain and nothing to lose by becoming involved, Tony Blair's policy is nothing but a bloody mess.

So far all Mr Blair has done is to sit on the shoulder of an American president like a stuffed parrot repeating every word he says, when even the dogs know he is not to be trusted.

FRED HIRLAM,

Gloucester Avenue, Silsden.

SIR - The oligarchical and institutional arrogance of the so-called 'world leaders' is clearly apparent in their dealings with others!

The ignorance and stupidity of the likes of Saddam Hussein and Slobadan Milosevic is but a reflection of the self-righteousness and pseudo-morality of the likes of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

Do any of them prove to be working for the benefit of all, in service to the greater planetary good? Do any of them defend the interest of truth and justice? Are any of them considering the greatest world problem of all, that of widespread social insanity? - brought about by centuries of destructive entrepreneurialism and deleterious employment - I think not.

BRIAN ROBINSON

Leylands Lane, Keighley

SIR - Councillor Kris Hopkins' letter in the Keighley News (March 26, 1999) about education, should be contrasted with his earlier letter of October 10 1997 where he said a two tier education system, "will see the close of Laycock, Oldfield, Oxenhope and Stanbury Schools."

This was 100 per cent wrong. All four schools will be retained in the new set-up as primary schools, as will the three other Worth Valley first schools, Lees, Haworth (on the Hartington site) and Oakworth. A parent wrote to me as follows, "I believe that the proposed pattern of primary education in the Upper Worth Valley offers a good range of alternatives from which to choose."

Dealing with the question of Bronte School, I am pledged to fighting its closure and wish to keep it open for educational purposes in its magnificent setting. It follows that any such use will include the provision of community facilities including sports in the grounds.

With regard to Haworth, my letter in the Keighley News of December 5, 1998 advocated a strategy for Haworth that would move us away from piecemeal development towards an integrated plan which would encompass the views of residents, traders, the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, the Bronte Society etc.

I am pleased that the idea for a strategy has been taken on board in the recent "Vision for Haworth" report. A key part of such a plan would be to provide those services located at present at the Haworth Community Centre.

I share Councillor Hopkins' wish that Keighley and the Worth Valley receive a better deal when the Unitary Development Plan is revised, but it is reasonable to treat his current estimate of additional houses with some scepticism in view of his wildly inaccurate forecast about primary schools in the Worth Valley during the Schools' Review.

CLLR JOHN COPE,

Station Road, Oakworth.

SIR - Three new housing development applications are now making their way to the Labour dominated Keighley Planning Sub-Committee.

The Springhead development at Mytholmes, Haworth. A greenfield site which will require the felling of dozens of mature oak trees, despite a tree preservation order.

Sykes Mill, Denholme Road, Oxenhope. A site situated in a conservation area on the edge of Leeming Reservoir, exiting onto an already overcrowded narrow road.

Swine Lane, Riddlesden. Yet another massive development on greenfields.

Fortunately for the Labour Party, non of these applications will reach committee before the May local elections. It is a time of year when the ruling Labour Party will promise the earth to maintain power. Please lobby every Labour councillor and gain assurances that they will vote against these acts of environmental barbarism.

The Labour Party has now been in power for nine years in Bradford and during this time has consistently targeted Keighley and its surrounding villages to meet Bradford's housing needs. It is time to stop them. No more greenfield housing expansion.

CLLR KRIS HOPKINS

Worth Valley, Conservative

SIR - At this time of year circuses around the country are gearing up to take to the roads for an extensive tour lasting to the end of year.

If a circus visits your local area, please take a moment to think - does this circus use animals? And if it does, please don't go.

The life of a circus animal is miserable.

Their daily routine is one of deprivation and confinement - with little respite.

The Animal Defenders undertook an extensive 18 month undercover study into living conditions for circus animals in travelling circuses and permanent training centres.

All species we examined displayed disturbed and stereotypic behaviour from lions and elephants to horses.

Living in makeshift conditions, we saw elephants shackled for up to 98% of their time, while lions and tigers were caged on lorries for up to 80% of their day.

Even ponies were tethered for up to 96% of the day.

And then there's the physical and verbal abuse - animals are routinely moved about by use of iron bars, broom handles, violent screaming, whips and fists - whatever comes to hand.

The Animal Defenders are the group responsible for securing convictions against top circus animal trainer Mary Chipperfield, her husband Roger Cawley and their elephant keeper Michael Stephen Gills.

A recent Animal Defenders/MORI Poll found that 73% of people felt it unacceptable for exotic animals like elephants and tigers to perform in circuses.

Public opinion agrees that it is time to bring an end to this outmoded mode of "entertainment."

If you still want to take your children to an animal circus, the Animal Defenders have produced a video called The Ugliest Show On Earth - please watch this first and then make up your mind.

For further information, please call us on 0191-846 9777 today.

SHELLEY SIMMONS,

Animal Defenders,

London.

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