Summer 2013 : Issue 123 • GREEN WAYS: TEN YEARS ON • YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE DALES: A FAIR DEAL? • • DALESBUS: EXPERIENCE THE DALES IN A DIFFERENT WAY • • MISS NORA CURRY: RETIRED HM FACTORY INSPECTORATE • • AwARD-WINNING UPPER WHARFEDALE FELL RESCUE ASSOCIATION NEEDS SUPPORT • Campaign • proteCt • enjoy Cover Photo: Evening Light, Appersett – Hilary Fenten This page: Mountain Pansies on Settle Tops - Andy Holden Contents Summer 2013 : Issue 123 YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE DALES Page 3 YDS CELEBRATION GIFT OFFER Page 12 A fair deal? VIRGINIA WOOLF 1882-1941 Page 13 GREEN LANE, TEN YEARS ON Page 4-5 The Giggleswick Connection DALESBUS Page 5-6 SWALEDALE MUSEUM Page 14-15 Experience The Dales In A Different Way Imaginative Recycling MISS CURRY Page 7-8 DALESWATCH Page 15 Retired HM Factory Inspector ENCOURAGING NEW PALIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE IN MEMBERS Page 16 CARLTON, COVERDALE Page 8 ARKLEMOOR NEW YORKSHIRE DALES SOCIETY RIDING CENTRE Page 17 BUSINESS MEMBERS Page 9 OBITUARY Page 17 AWARD-WINNING UPPER WHARFEDALE HORTON MOBILE SHOP Page 18 FELL RESCUE WILDERNESS Page 18 ASSOCIATION Page 10-11 EVENTS Page 18-19 THE RIBBLE Page 12 Yorkshire Rivers Editor Fleur Speakman 2 Email: [email protected] young people and the dales: A fair DEAL? he Commission for Rural person under his fatherly mentor, learning to College, aided by two senior students. Their TCommunities (CRC) in its report on curb his anger and frustration, and beginning talk brought into sharp focus that once Barriers to education, employment to enjoy his countryside tasks. the school leaving age has been raised to and training of young people in rural There is a tremendous sense of fun and 18 in 2016, insufficient account is taken of areas, in January 2013, stated that the potential problems as regards the availability speed by which young people become vitality in this multi-award-winning film - best NEET (not in education, employment feature film, and acting and cinematography of further education, jobs or apprenticeships, or training) since the start of the awards at the Worldfest in Houston, and compounded by the actual costs of higher recession, has increased more rapidly the prestigious main prize at the Anchorage education, and related travel problems. (See in rural areas than in urban. This is International Film Festival. Written and Daleswatch page 15 for YDS suggestions.) a deeply worrying and demoralising directed by Austwick's Dan Hartley as a Recently a Dales headmaster voiced his fears situation. Some of our own young tribute to a real National Park warden who that new a new round of funding cuts to people in the Yorkshire Dales are had helped him through his teenage year, Lad smaller schools would inevitably affect dales facing a particularly difficult time as will be shown in all UK National Parks and is regards employment and an uncertain communities. future. a tremendous positive advertisement for the National Park movement, and its integration On a more positive note, the Dales Integrated Lad: A Yorkshire Story is a popular film that into the local community. Though the film Transport Alliance (DITA) are trying to has a good deal of resonance at the present is upbeat and often very witty, it does make remedy some of the accessibility problems for time. The film shot round Settle and the the point strongly that young people need to leisure needs by offering special bus tickets Ribblesdale area, highlights some of these have access to more possibilities. Thwarting in the Dales at £1 per journey, valid evenings issues, with the stunning backdrop of bleak the desire to work and learn stores up much after 5pm, weekends and school holidays. This and rocky vistas of unyielding grandeur, trouble for the future as we damage our is also valid on DalesBus: ID, however, must rather than clichéd picture postcard beauty “seed-corn”. be produced. Later early evening Sunday often seen on our screens. Thirteen year Tom DalesBus services means, for example, that a Transport to and from work is another Proctor finds his world collapses as his father, young waitress can stay for a full shift at busy difficult problem in the dales, (as the CRC a quarry worker, dies unexpectedly. As family report states), particularly for would-be weekends at dales tea-shops and village inns. strains increase, and with no hope of a job, staff for small scale businesses. Tom's elder brother joins the army, going off High cost Yet we still need to find a variety of ways for basic training. Tom feels doubly deserted, and low availability of public and private in which to help, support and value the internalising his trauma. But when his transport can have a negative impact on upcoming younger generation who have so . Two youngsters in a Dales mother cannot pay the mortgage as the bank opportunities much to offer us. The CRC Report calls for village, for example, have passed their driving threatens to re-possess their home, he decides the appointment of a government minister test, but cannot afford a vehicle to get to to take spectacular revenge by raining liquid for young people in rural areas to act as work further afield in their area. manure down on the building from a muck a focal point and representative for rural spreader. Although he has broken the law on Future concerns were effectively high-lighted youth affairs. Appointing such a person, with several counts, fortunately an enlightened in March regarding the uncertain future of sufficient powers, would be a welcome start. police officer organises Tom's community young people in an excellent presentation service under Al Thorpe, an elderly National to the YDS Policy Committee by Gill Walker, Park Ranger. Tom slowly starts to mature as a Year 11 Pastoral Care Officer at Settle Fleur Speakman Yorkshire Dales Society 3 green lanes: ten years on he two pictures tell most of the story. The photo that will allow them to resume their expansionist project of asserting Topposite was taken on Mastiles Lane, in December 2002. the rights of motorists to use any green lane that, maybe hundreds of 4x4s and motorbikes had reduced this magnificent green years ago, was legally used by horses and carts. No flaws in NERC have lane to a sorry state, and the peace and tranquillity that, yet been established, but the Act will be absolutely secure only when once upon a time, could be taken for granted, was regularly vehicle user groups’ legal challenges are exhausted. disturbed by the noise of revving engines. The main photo was taken at exactly the same place, in April this year. Another problem is NERC’s failure to include every category of What a difference. The track has greened over, and the only green lane in its provisions. A large number of green lanes, known as sounds to be heard are sheep, larks, curlew, and lapwing. ‘Unclassified County Roads’ (UCRs), are not covered by the Act. A case What brought about this transformation? in point is the superb route that runs from Middlesmoor, in Nidderdale, In 2002, by which time the impact of 4x4s and motorbikes was being over Deadman’s Hill, to descend to Arkleside, in Coverdale. As well seen and heard right across the Dales, the Yorkshire Dales Green as being unprotected by NERC, this route runs, for most of its length, Lanes Alliance (YDGLA) was founded, with pump-priming grants of outside the Dales National Park. This means that it is managed by the money from the Yorkshire Dales Society, and the Ramblers. YDGLA North Yorkshire Highway Authority. The appalling damage inflicted claims only a modest share of the credit for the rescue of green lanes on the track by 4x4s and motorbikes was brought to the Authority’s such as Mastiles. The chief agents of the transformation are, first, an attention by YDGLA. In response, the Highway Authority timidly Act of Parliament, the Natural Environments and Rural Communities imposed only a temporary TRO, on just half of the route, prohibiting Act, (NERC) 2006, which set severe limits to the hitherto unstoppable non-essential vehicles, on grounds of surface damage. When temporary expansion of the network of green lanes open to recreational 4x4s orders are imposed, on these grounds, the Authority is eventually and motorbikes, and which gave national park authorities the power obliged to make repairs, and then re-open the route. By contrast, the to prohibit vehicles from green lanes, by means of Traffic Regulation Dales National Park Authority, whenever it imposed TROs, did so on Orders (TROs). Second, the Dales National Park Authority seized broadly environmental and amenity grounds – not on grounds of its new powers, skilfully negotiated the legal obstacle course that surface damage, even though the surfaces were invariably in a terrible lies ahead of any authority that seeks to prohibit motoring on green state. This distinction between two types of TRO may seem obscure, lanes, and imposed permanent TROs on ten of the most beautiful and but the grim prospect for Deadman’s Hill is that expensive repairs vulnerable green lanes. YDGLA’s contribution was to mobilise public opinion in the Dales, and to help in the founding of the remarkable will shortly be made, after which the route will have to be re-opened coalition of amenity groups that lobbied Parliament for what emerged to vehicles, probably in August this year. The noise and nuisance will as the NERC Act. resume, and it is doubtful whether the repairs will withstand the renewed assaults of 4x4s and motorbikes. Far better to have imposed a Alas, the rescue of Mastiles Lane does not tell the whole story. At permanent TRO in the first place, and have done with it… public inquiries and in the High Court, 4x4 and motorbike groups are testing every dot and comma of the NERC Act, hoping to find a flaw Mastiles Lane 20/4/2013 4 Email: [email protected] green lanes: ten years on … What next, in the struggle to protect the network of beautiful green lanes that are emblematic of the ways in which humans have shaped the Dales landscape? In the short term, we need many more permanent TROs, imposed according to the template painstakingly hammered out by the Dales National Park Authority.