Letters to the Editor

SIR, - Reading the front page of the Wharfedale Observer last week and the support that our MP, Greg Mulholland, is giving the town, I'm prompted to write to give support not just to our MP but 'the Wharfedale' too, for pushing forward the 'We're Backing Otley and Aireborough' columns.

Since starting business back in 1986 our business has gone from strength to strength. We had a clear vision of how we wanted 'Patisserie Viennoise' to develop.

This was to be a journey, and not necessarily an easy on, but we stuck to our guns and now we supply cakes not just in the Otley area but throughout the North of England.

Business has always been challenging and always will be challenging, I've always had the support from my staff and none more than today from my nine employees who are all artistic and highly skilled.

Over the years in business and since joining the Chamber of Trade, I have been lucky in as much that help and advice has always been at hand and never far away. Last July, businesses and organisations were invited by Parliament's All Party Small Shops Group to answer some questions as to how we see the High Street in the year 2015 .

I am pleased that our MP Greg Mulholland is taking a lead on this issue. Just recently Mr Mulholland visited my shop and we discussed amongst other issues, car parking, street cleaning and toilets.

Recently Leeds City Council gave many small businesses a 50 per cent reduction in business rates. This has been a tremendous help to businesses. Let's hope that our MP can come up with other measures like this which will help businesses to thrive.

I'm hoping that Mr Mulholland can press the Parliamentary inquiry into helping Otley with the issues which I have raised.

Everyone who knows me will know that I have every confidence in Otley. We have some fantastic shops and businesses in the town. I'm very proud of Otley and the diverse range of shops that we have.

And I think that we must thank the loyal customers, not just the local Otley people but those who travel to Otley from far and wide for shopping and using businesses in the town.

Now I'm quietly hoping that the Parliamentary inquiry can come up with the goods to help keep Otley on the map.

Trevor Backhouse

Patisserie Viennoise,

Westgate,

Otley.

Absent MP

SIR, - Having waited for 25 years and more, I have to say that Otley's new

library, which also serves people in Pool, Bramhope and elsewhere outside Otley, has been worth waiting for. It is a splendid new facility and I would encourage people to use it to the fullest extent.

The surprising thing though about last week's opening ceremony was the absence of our ubiquitous Member of Parliament. After all wasn't it was only just before Christmas that he was portrayed on the front of a Liberal leaflet standing triumphantly in front of the new library building accompanied by a couple of his chums, giving the impression that he single-handedly designed, built and funded the new building?

But he wasn't there to see his project finally completed - so where on earth was he ?

Wait a minute, though. Of course, the Friday in question was the very day the rest of the nation spent hours glued to television and radio sets to learn more of the fate of his leader, Charles Kennedy. So that's where Greg would have been, queueing up outside broadcasting studios together with his fellow Liberal MPs - no I hadn't heard of them, either - waiting to give us his considered views on the great constitutional crisis facing the Liberals.

But No, Greg, who is not noted for being camera shy or missing any photo opportunity that comes along, was as far as I am aware to be neither seen nor heard over the airwaves. A mystery indeed.

Did he spend the day in hiding then? Was he one of the secret assassins who so brutally stabbed Charles Kennedy in the back, or does he remain quietly loyal to his former leader ?

As his constituents we ought to be knowing - but will he tell us ? Perhaps the answer is to be found somewhere in the library under the Political Expediency section.

Coun Clive Fox

99 Breary Lane East,

Bramhope.

System failure

SIR, - The revelations of character weakness of Lib Dem. leader Charles Kennedy should be taken not only as a failure of the man but of the political system that created him. This should be put in perspective and context.

All leaders have character defects none more than exhibited by Blair and unanswered by Cameron. Look at any leader and you will see serious defects that make them unsuitable to make decisions for mankind.

Recently we have had Major's infidelity and a list of others whose conduct was abominable. There was Blunkett, Byers, Mandlesson, Alan Clarke and Archer, not forgetting the Royals.

American Presidents John Kennedy, Clinton, Nixon were liars and adulterers and British icon Churchill a notorious drinker. All scoundrels and all in positions of power.

If the Lib Dems swap Kennedy for another leader all that will happen is we will change a devil we know for one we don't.

The real culprit is the pretence of democracy that places weak men in positions of power. If leaders are incapable of making decision on their own lives why do we allow them to make decisions on ours? These are the men and women who start wars and enslave the masses.

This will continue whilst ever we have a corrupt system we call 'democracy' and it is the system we should change, not leaders like Kennedy.

Western democracy is a joke. The joke is on the poor fools who participate in elections for flawed leaders and hypocritical parties who representwealthy and privileged Establishments, not the people.

Malcolm Naylor

21 Grange View,

Otley.

Coyne tribute

SIR, - It was very kind of Coun Andrew Carter and Pat Lofthouse of the Chippendale Society to remember my late partner, Philip Coyne, during the ceremony to open the new Otley Library, (reported in 'the Wharfedale' last week).

Large civic projects such as a new library building involve complex negotiations and take several years to come to fruition. Between 2000 and 2001 Philip, John Eveleigh and other Otley Labour Councillors spent many hours in meetings with the city council and Leeds Development Agency to help secure funding and a suitable site for the new library.

It must be very satisfying for everyone involved in the long journey to see the original vision and hard work finally come to fruition in the new library building - it will be a fantastic resource for people of all ages living in Otley.

Penny Mares

8 Newall Mount,

Otley.

Historic mill site

SIR, - Have the deliberations over the redevelopment of Garnett's Paper Mill taken the ancient history of the site into consideration?

Prior to the establishment of papermaking, the mill was a corn mill, known to have existed in early mediaeval times, contemporary with the Archbishop's Palace. The corn mill would have been one of the most important elements of the rural economy of the Otley community and the surrounding area.

If you walk along the riverbank through Wharfemeadows Park on the north side of the river about 100 metres below the weir and look across at the foundations of the mill, it is evident that they are of a much earlier period than the existing supertrsucture.

I worked in the laboratory at the paper mill in the mid-1950s. At that time an investigation into the possibility of an alternative source of water to supply the mill during the summer drought months from an ancient well on the site was undertaken by the chief chemist.

The well proved to be chalybeate, so the scheme to make paper with water smelling of rotten eggs was abandoned. The Archbishop's Palace was buried under the playground of St Joseph's School before the archaeological investigation was completed.

No plans for Garnett's Mill should be approved without recognition of the site's historic significance and archaeological research.

ANNE LEE

8 Somerville Terrace,

East Busk Lane,

Otley.

Homeless plight

SIR, - How uplifting it was at Christmas to read the New Year message and subsequent articles from our MP regarding his concern for homeless people. An example to us all, I thought.

So imagine my feelings when I heard that, in Leeds, under the joint administration of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, provision for homeless people was reduced in the past year by the closure of one of the hostels that catered for homeless people.

The closure of another hostel for women fleeing domestic violence also occurred in the last year, too.

How confusing also to find out that Mr Mulholland was a member of Leeds City Council when the decision was reached, by his party, to close the hostels before adequate and welcomed alternative accommodation for homeless people in Leeds is not reflected in the official figures as promoted by the Lib Dem/Tory administration in Leeds.

An explanation of this apparent anomaly would be appreciated.

Elizabeth Sestini

Redlands,

Billams Hill,

Otley.

Remember Frank?

SIR, - I would like to appeal to your readers for any information concerning one Frank Chippendale of Otley.

In 1926, Frank Chippendale was awarded first prize (£100) in the architecture competition at the Royal National Eisteddford of Wales held at Swansea that year.

According to a report in the Western Mail, 'perhaps the most satisfactory of all the art competitions' was 'the perfectly wonderful response made for a design for a National Parliament House for Wales.

It was won by 'Pompeius' with a remarkably fine set of drawings revealing a design of dignified grace and refinement, and evidently inspired - at least the prinsipal partg of the front elevation and the imposing approach to it - by the Victor Emmanuel Monument that dominates the end of the Corso at Rome'.

The competition was judged by Arthur Keen, vice-president of RIBA, who stated that the design reached distinction in every way.

According to press reports, Frank Chippendale was 23 years old and asked for his drawings to be returned to Leeds School of Art.

It would be especially fitting to discover further details concerning this Yorkshire architect and the whreabouts of his design for a Parliament House for Wales, as the Senate building of the National Assembly for Wales opens shortly and the Royal National Eisteddford is being hosted by Swansea once more this year.

Please contact myself at robyn@eisteddford.org.uk or telephone 029 2076 3777.

ROBYN TOMOS

Visual Arts Officer,

National Eisteddford of Wales.

Call for end to Metro councils

SIR, - The decision by Leeds City Council to restrict recycling to residents only and discussed in last week's edition is potentially damaging to the environment, expensive to police and typically small-minded.

It very effectively reminds us that we now live in what is, thanks to council planning decisions, an increasingly urbanised region and that the Metropolitan District Councils are now themselves an irrelevance and need to be recycled back as soon as possible into a resurrected West Riding County Council.

This would have the enormous advantage of at least providing the opportunity for the much needed regional planning, that the present administrations on their own admission, are incapable of providing.

An additional benefit is that the cost of restructuring is likely to be more than paid for by savings resulting from the elimination of the very expensive Metropolitan District Councils.

Alec Denton

Oxford Avenue,

Guiseley.