HOPES of creating a lasting legacy to the community spirit of Otley have this week bitten the dust - through a lack of the very thing it aimed to enshrine.

A Millennium Garden had been vaunted as the perfect solution to the endless quest for a suitable marker of the year 2000. And why not?

Members of the Otley Millennium Association wanted a way of including the whole town, from its youngest residents to the oldest, encouraging disabled and able-bodied people to join forces and create a garden worthy of a new era.

And they hoped it would be maintained by a core of people willing to care for what could have become an Otley landmark to rival the displays on show in nearby Wharfemeadows Park.

Unfortunately, such willing seems to be at a premium in Otley. Not withstanding the residents who voiced their objections to the scheme, few people turned out to offer their support or ideas.

It is sadly a sign of the times that we all want to celebrate the turn of the century but would rather that someone else did all the donkey work.

Organisers were at least given a clear sign that a number of householders in The Crescent were against the scheme. They did bother to turn up and offered their arguments against putting a public garden at the foot of their homes.

But no-one argued strongly against them. The Millennium Association members, while left in no doubt as to the negative response, had no indication of a positive one either.

That is not to say that every Otley resident disagreed with the plan. In fact many probably approved of it - but stayed at home, expecting other people to ensure it went ahead.

Fears over the threat of vandalism are certainly valid but not reason enough to automatically abandon any scheme which is put before us. No town or city would ever construct a monument or create a park if it gave in to those fears every time.

Now the plans look unlikely to come to fruition. And if Otley residents have little to remember the millennium by in a year's time, they only have themselves to blame.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.