Letters round-up

The proposal of the Fitzwilliam Estate to make of it an extension of the Talbot Hotel, and to create up to eight bedrooms within it, with associated en-suite bathrooms, plumbing and electrics etc, and numerous other requirements of building and fire regulations, as well as ofluxury hotel accommodation entirely unsympathetic to the retention of historic fabric and its proper performance, could not be more inappropriate and will rob Malton of perhaps its most treasured historic asset.

The extension of the estate’s new mission to render important historic buildings “fit for the 21st century” now settles upon York House, not only upon its interior, but upon its setting, with an intention to squeeze between York House and the Talbot an architecturally eclectic function room that will extend into and disrupt the 17th century garden lay-out, already much degraded closer to the river by a service road to the hotel accessed via a suburban golf-course-style gateway. Presumably, this lower terrace will turn rapidly into a car park for the hotel extension and wedding venue.

In 2010, York House had been substantially repaired using like-for-like, compatible materials; the house was at the stage of careful, considered and informed final finish conservation to bring it to completion as a substantially authentic late 17th century and early 18th century interior. The potential for the town of such a nationally scarce building, its late 17th century garden restored, required only ambition and imagination to be realised in all manner of diverse ways.

Some buildings are simply too important to be “made fit for the 21st century”. York House is one of these. This proposal will destroy the essence of this very special building and leave Malton as a whole the poorer and the more diminished.

I would call upon all of those who have known York House, to oppose these plans with the utmost vigour and to seek an outcome for this building that will truly benefit the people of Malton.

Nigel Copsey, Thornton-le-Dale

We must keep the European Court

FURTHER to letter “EU vote should we stay or go?” (Gazette & Herald, March 2), I am in and I am very pleased our MP, Kevin Hollinrake is also. Why?

It was well reported in the national and local media when I was litigant and won equality for winter fuel payments for men aged 60 and over, on July 8, 1999. That victory was won in the European Court of Justice. There is a photo of me outside the European Court of Justice, with my legal team from Parity Registered Charity and Liberty.

Further, Parity also won: l Free NHS prescriptions for men aged 60 and over in the ECJ; l The Free Bus Pass in the European Court of Human rights; ECHR; l Equal rights for widowed fathers in the ECHR.

If any reader wants to learn more they should google Parity Charity and John Taylor Winter Fuel Payments.

We must keep the European Court of Justice and also of Human Rights. To conclude there is much red tape and bureaucracy in the UK.

John Taylor, Norton

Why the increase in our council tax?

THE leader of Ryedale District Council (RDC) has announced a council tax increase of 2.82 per cent, following an initial statement that it would be frozen.

While I accept it is good housekeeping to have some sort of increase, could this particularly large increase – the largest in the country in value terms – be connected with the costs incurred over the superstore saga?

That was only brought to an end on January 14, at a cost to Ryedale ratepayers of more than £1,700,000. Neither the councillors, nor the chief executive and her officers, have been called to account for this reckless squandering of public money.

Mr Justice Dove, in his judgment quashing RDC’s second rotten planning consent for the superstore, stated that officers’ conclusions were ‘infected with error’, that they had ‘misled members significantly’ and that they had ‘fundamentally misrepresented the comprehensive decisions by the Planning Inspector at the 2012 Public Enquiry’.

This cost taxpayers £150,000. Yet the leader claimed in this paper last week that RDC has ‘a brilliant team of officers who have delivered savings’.

She continued: ‘If members have the courage to play their part in the transformation of our council, I have every confidence we can emerge a better and more efficient council.’ That statement must be welcomed if it really means what it says. Shine the light into all the corners of Ryedale House from bottom to top. Bring in vision and accountability and let’s have a council we can trust to do its job properly and a council with which we can enjoy working in future for the common good.

Emma Brooksbank, Menethorpe

‘Biased’ views of the Civil Service

SIR Jeremy Heywood has clearly demonstrated that the Civil Service does have an agenda of political bias.

Such a policy is in direct contradiction of one of the most important principles supposedly enshrined in our system of bureaucracy; that ofpolitical indifference. Never more can these people be trusted.

Perhaps the real reason for this unwarranted action is that some papers contain information which would not only support but may demand that the UK withdraw from the EU.

D Loxley, Hartoft

Sabotage of signs?

FURTHER to David Mackie’s article on March 2 “Anti-Fracking Group in Street Demonstration”, I would add that opposition to fracking has steadily grown over the past year in direct correlation to increased awareness that Ryedale has been determined by Westminster and the Energy Companies, as an area to be fracked.

To As part of a strategy of informing residents of what is being planned here, several of us have placed anti-fracking signs along our local highways.

I recently heard that a journalist from one of the national papers remarked that in Lancashire there were loads of signs, but less so in Ryedale. His conclusion was that perhaps we didn’t care.

It is quite disparaging to hear these remarks because aAs fast as we have put up anti-fracking signs there have been several incidents where the signs have been taken down.

I don’t know who is responsible for taking down these signs. It’s unlikely to be the highways department because the signs that have been taken down were in the hedgerows on private land. It’s also not the landowner because signs were placed with their permission.

So, I ask the first question any detective would ask. Who has a vested interest in seeing these signs removed? Interestingly, the signs least likely to be attacked are those close to houses where the attacker would likely be observed.

Heather Stroud, Gilling East

Paying for mistakes

YOUR article by Karen Darley quoting Linda Cowling having to make a hefty saving of £1.1 million would make it £6 million savings and more from the Wentworth Street car park if she had not persisted in going all the way up a brick wall.

Now we are having to pay for Ryedale District Council’s costly white elephant.

Should Linda Cowling not be responsible for paying this costly mistake out of her own pocket?

Jarvis Browning, Fadmoor

Battalion children

I AM writing to ask readers if they are or know any descendants of those who fought on the Somme in 21st Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps (The Yeoman Rifles), which was formed at Duncombe Park, Helmsley, and commanded by my grandfather, The Earl of Feversham, who was killed in September 1916.

We are holding a commemoration at All Saints Church, Helmsley, and Duncombe Park with the Archbishop of York on September 17, 2016, during the weekend of the anniversary.

Would you please let the Reverend Tim Robinson, who is very kindly coordinating this event know at The Vicarage, Baxtons Road, Helmsley, YO62 5HT, or tim.robinson123@btinternet.com.

Lady Clarissa Collin, Pockley

MP confronted by fracking protestors

ON Kevin Hollinrake’s way into his surgery in Helmsley, he stopped to address concerns about fracking as expressed by a group of demonstrators, 35 to 40 strong, who had assembled outside the venue.

To say that he succeeded in persuading any of those gathered that he and the government were on the right track in promoting fracking, and that he was doing all that he could to protect Ryedale, would not represent the facts.

Mr Hollinrake’s argument was that he saw no alternative to fracking, but that he understood the concerns of some of his constituents and was doing all he could to mitigate its deleterious effects.

On the former front, he was handed details of a recent report which demonstrated their findings that shale cannot be a bridge to renewables; and on the latter front, he was reminded that the robust regulatory framework he espouses and believes exists would fail at the first hurdle when challenged under the projected clauses of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Mr Hollinrake was asked why he had surveyed only those on his (Party) database to ascertain support for and views on fracking. He pleaded convenience and implied that he would not pass on the results as representative of his constituents, although he did not accept that the majority of his constituents were opposed to fracking.

If this were demonstrated to him, he said he would have to think carefully about how to represent the views of these people.

Some of the younger demonstrators voiced their inability to grasp how, when presented with so much contradictory evidence, Mr Hollinrake could in all conscience act as a spokesperson for the industry. A nice reminder from an idealist that the debate is about more than the claimed economic benefits, and that politicians’ actions find their justification only in the idealism that inspires them.

David Cragg-James, Stonegrave