Brkshire Dales No.32 Review Autumn 1990
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The brkshire Dales No.32 Review Autumn 1990 J « I - i Quarry Lorries in Settle Death By A Thousand Cuts? Nidderdale Museum Award ''i Wensleydale Goes Green THE YORKSHIRE DALES REVIEW No 32 AUTUMN 1990 - 3 - Quarry Lorries In Settle THE YORKSHIRE DALES REVIEW is the quarterly journal of the Yorkshire Dales Society A count of quarry lorries passing through Settle centre was carried out by 11 and is published by the Society. Views expressed in The Review are purely those of volunteer members of Settle Area Community Council on Wednesday June 27th 1990. individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Society The main objectives of the count were to establish precisely how many quarry lorries go through the centre of the town during daylight hours, to compare their numbers house by hour, and to discover what proportion of them comply with the requirements for their loads to be sheeted. Bad Neighbours Only quarry lorries were counted and all other vehicles were excluded. Owing to road works caused by the renewal of a gas main, there were temporary traffic lights in On the opposite page we print, in summary form, the results of a survey undertaken Church Street and Market Square. -Although this caused some delay, it was considered in the centre of the market town of Settle at the end of June by volunteers of that the numbers of quarry lorries would not be substantially affected. The count was Settle Community Council. made continuously between 0500 and 1700 hours. The weather on that day began fine and sunny, becam.v-e overcast, and in the final hour there was rain with a thunderstorm. During a 12 hour period, on a typical working day, over 500 vehicle movements were The count took place in the vicinity of St. John's Church and the railway briddge. recorded, roughly one every I5 minutes. The total number of quarry lorries recorded in the 12 hours from 0500 to 1700 hrs. Settle is a beautiful, small Dales town, rich in heritage interest. It is also a was 232 nothbound and 265 southbound. The numbers in each of the 12 hours were as place where many Dales people live and work. follows: Few people could fail to agree with Mr R.F.Newby, Secretary of the Community Council, Total when he speaks of the "noise, dust, vibration, air pollution, congestion and potential Hour beginning Northbound Southbound danger they cause" caused by the onslaught on Settle which begin at 0500 in the 0500 6 3 9 0600 30 51 morning. 21 0700 9 35 44 Yet Settle has a new by-pass which avoids the town, but "the lorries refuse to use it because it adds a few miles to the journey and involves a steep hill. Instead they 0800 23 14 37 continue to come through the town centre." 0900 25 27 52 54 Similar complaints are coming from the bop end of Ribblesdale and Wensleydale with 1000 30 24 huge quarry waggons now taking a short cut via Selside, Ribblehead and Hawes to 1100 18 19 37 Leyburn and Teeside. 1200 20 17 37 46 Public meetings called by Settle people to discuss the problem have become acrimonious 1300 23 23 affairs, with lorry drivers and quarry workers packing the meeting and implying to 1400 31 24 55 intimidated objectors that by asking for consideration, they are threatening Dales 1500 20 34 54 Jobs. 1600 6 15 21 This is of course utter rubbish. Far from costing jobs, responsible and considerate Totals 232 265 497 behaviour can create jobs. What is at fault is the "piece work" system in which The lowest totals occurred before 0600 and after I600rs; the highest self-employed drivers or small contractors compete for work on a lowest cost basis, totals occurred between 0900 and 1100 and between 1400 and a600 hrs. encouraged to make maximum use of their vehicle - which means taking the shortest routes and driving at fastest possible speeds. Efficient perhaps, but off-loading huge The highest northbound (towards the quarries) ocurred between 0900 and 1100 and between costs in terms of congestion and pollution onto the rest of Society. 1400 and 1500 hrs. The highest southbound (away from the quarries) occured between 0600 and 0800 and between 1500 and 1600 hrs. Yet the public authori ties stand idly by. The National Park Committee expresses concern but leaves action to the County Surveyor who can blandly claim to have Loaded lorries leaving the quarries are required to be sheeted to prjvent spillage. Of "insufficient resources" to carry but the kind of survey that the Settle volunteer^" the 260 seen to be loaded, 172 (66%) were not sheeted. Their separation into achieved. Lacking any credibility too is the claim that a lorry ban over Ribblhead northbound and southbound was as follows: would be "unenforceable". Ever heard of a policeman with a notebook ? Northbound Southbound Total Loaded, sheeted 3 35 88 The truth of the matter is that the North Yorkshire County Surveyor with- a multi- million pound road maintenance and building programme has a much too comfortable Loaded, not sheeted 6 166 172 relationship with the quarry companies who are major supplies of roadstone. Not loaded, not sheeted 207 8 215 There are solutions. These include restoring the sidings to the quarries that were Others and not known 16 6 22 removed years ago. New road-rail technology can allow trailers to leave the quarry by rail and be delivered locally by road. It also includes restrictions on routing The results of the count were passed on to local authorities, environmental to avoid areas like Settle and Hawes, and on times of operation outside normal hours of organisations, tourist boards and the press. rest. It also includes asking major question of what uses we put our highest grade limestone to - bearing in mind potential huge new demands for power station emission Settle Area Community Council desulphurisation requirements. The present situation is a scandal. Of course solutions cost money, but protection of the environment is, or should be, top priority, not the profits of multi-national corporations. Limestone is a cheap resource. If we all had to pay a fraction more for our goods and services to prevent the gross despoilation of the Dales now taking place, is there a single person, even those driving the waggons, who would say no ? Cover: Richmond Hill, Swaledale {John Edenbrow) Colin Speakman - 4 - Death By A Thousand Cuts? for compromise, we hoped might have worked. And admittedly for a time they worked well enough but changing circumstances have increased the strains and I would go Ken Willson, Chairman of the Yorkshire Dales Society, has spent a lifetime fighting as far as to assert that unless we achieve major changes in attitudes and policies, the for the countryside and for National Parks long before the term "Green" began to fall next forty years will see the end of our Parks. By this I mean that from purely from everyone's lips. A leading member of CPRE, the Ramblers Association and physical characteristics, they will be indistinguishable from other areas not so Council for National Parks, and a former Ministerially Appointed Member of the designated. Yorkshire Dales National Park Committee, Ken has given the Review permission to publish part of his personal statement to the Edwards Committee on National Parks. My first reason for so saying, is the sheer weight of visitor pressure which in some It makes 'salutary reading. cases is virtually destroying the surface of the land. There are particular examples of this in the Lake District and here in the Three Peaks area of the Dales. Some years It was, I think in 1946 or 7, that I went on holiday to Northern Ireland. On my way ago I asked Arthur Dower, what two factors had in his opinion most mitigated against down to the station in Leeds, I called in at a bookshop to collect my ordered copy of the achievement of the kind of National Parks that his brother John had visualised the Hobhouse Report and as the train sped northwards to Stranraer, I read with when writing his report. He replied unhesitatingly "firstly the prolification of the satisfaction the recommendations of that report. It seemed that after so many years motorcar and secondly changing in farming methods." It is agreed that it is additional of working and longing, the millenium was at hand. As we know the Act that followed in mobility afforded by teh motorcar that has flooded the Park with visitors. The only 1949, followed by the designation of the Peak and the Lakes Parks with their solution would seem to be to limit the number of cars and the number of visitors Boards. In the case of the third and subsequent Parks, Committees replaced Boards. entering the Parks. Whilst I believe this to be practicable, on a rationing basis I am one of the many who believed this to be a retrograde step.. Nevertheless, all for instance, I do not believe it to be acceptable and so the problems will increase. subsequent attempts to replace Committees by Boards were defeated. The Yorkshire Dales National Park Committee, in 1975, made a determined attempt to get itself re-constituted My second reason for despondency is the laxity of the development control system with as a Board and I was one of the deputation of Appointed Members of the Park Committee which is associated the Appeal system and the many successful Appeals. If one climbs a who was received by the then Secretary of State, John Silkin.