Make thoroughfare more attractive

It amazes me and many people of Keighley that the main thoroughfare (North Street) is in such a shabby state, the row of shops are a mess, one being empty for 17 years, yet around the corner the council is spending £2 million on a seating project. The money would be much better spent uniforming the shop fronts to make the thoroughfare more attractive for the benefit of Keighley and one's impressions when driving through.

Reginald Murphy, Bingley Road, Cross Roads.

Questions on flood risk remain

In response to comments made by a member of the Environment Agency in a recent article in the Keighley News that Sykes Lane site is a zone one flooding risk.

He gives the impression that the flood risk and drainage problems were finalised when the application was considered in August last year.

At the planning meeting in Silsden, on August 2, last year, the plans were passed for approval providing the Environment Agency confirmed the ground was still safe to develop without creating a flood risk. As the plan for the run off water was to store this in a series of on site "holding" facilities so that surface water ran off to Silsden Beck will be controlled to a level acceptable to the EA and which will avoid any consequential flooding downstream.

A Silsden town councillor wants the application to be called in by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister as he says "Right now we are at a stalemate. Bradford Council has said you can build as long as the EA has said you can and the EA isn't going to say anything. I say, let the Government deal with it".

My questions are, has the EA now got off the fence and confirmed that there is no flooding risk from the buildings on Sykes Lane and the pumping of run off water into Silsden Beck? What is going to happen when Silsden Beck is flooding as it did earlier this year and the holding facilities are full? Where is the run off water going to go then?

Janet Emmett Millfields, Silsden

Isolated and ignored

As the parent of a child with autism I am very worried about what will happen as they get older.

Autism is a lifelong condition, yet as "I Exist", the new report from The National Autistic Society has found, many adults with the disability struggle to get the help they so desperately need. Many feel isolated and ignored and are entirely dependent on their families for support. I want to see the right services and support in place so people with autism in this area can reach their true potential - the right help at the right time can have a profound effect.

That is why I'm supporting the NAS "think differently about autism" campaign. I urge people in Keighley and district to visit think-differently.org.uk and help put pressure on local and national government to do more to transform the lives of adults with autism.

Debbie Gillespie Broadway, Bingley.

MP tries to help people

I would like to answer Councillor Kris Hopkins's comments on Mrs Ann Cryer.

Ann at least tries to help her constituents if she can. Last month I was very distressed over a matter and Ann tried unsuccessfully to help me.

I rang Cllr Hopkins but was asked where I had got the phone number from. Surely any councillor has his name and phone number in the council notes.

This is the second time I have asked Cllr Hopkins for help.

When the housing trust was moving our mobile wardens to Bingley from Keighley I got 447 signatures against it and sent this to Cllr Hopkins. The petition conveniently disappeared. I arranged a meeting at Churchill House and Cllr Hopkins never turned up.

Needless to say the wardens were moved and we have lost our local warden, Julie.

I don't like expressing myself in the paper - I would rather do it face-to-face. This is not a voting gimmick, as I don't vote for anyone.

Mrs J Smith Harewood Rise, Bogthorn, Keighley.

Group must continue

Keighley town councillors Ron Beale and myself David Samuels were proud to have been invited to Swire Smith Hall on Friday, March 28, to hear a presentation given by staff and their clients of the charity Disc.

It is an organisation supported by Bradford Council and works with such fundamental establishments as Keighley Library, Project 6, Citizens Advice Bureau and 17 other well known Keighley-based groups.

At present the Disc organisation has an office at Springfield Mills, in Keighley. The office staff will give advice to those who need to develop initiatives and will provide support to those who may have health conditions, but who now seek the challenges of a work ethic after being without the support of paid employment.

Sadly, financial support from Bradford Council has to end within six months, unless the Disc charity can secure £30,000 locally. It seems a shame that since starting up in August 2007 the scheme is to close and future benefits to the community, those who need this service so desperately, will be lost forever.

Please send donations, or for details go to Registered Charity 515 755 to Disc, Phoenix House, Central Avenue, Newton Aycliffe DL5 5QH. This charity was set up 23 years ago and has been developing initiatives, supporting communities, it must continue!

Town Councillors David Samuels and Ron Beale.

Outdoor centre reunion call

I wonder if I can prevail upon you and your newspaper. We are holding a reunion at Bewerley Park outdoor Centre, Pateley Bridge, on April 19, for those who have attended the school in its many guises.

While there is reasonable data on those who attended through the years of the Second World War, there is little or no information of those who attended since. We are particularly interested in contacting those who attended in the year when the West Riding County Council was in control and ran outdoor courses of five to six weeks long.

A Friends organisation mainly made up of those who attended in the 1940s and staff was wound up two years ago. But before it folded I was asked to endeavour to form a new Friends organisation which would embrace all those who have passed though the centre in its many forms.

Attendance will have to be by prior arrangement and we will not be able to accept people just dropping in. Therefore, if any of your readers who have a connection and would like to contact me, preferably by e-mail at newfriendsofbewerleyparkschool@googlemail.com, or contact me by post, A G Wood, 12, Marlborough Avenue, Warton, Preston, Lancashire PR4 1BP (an SAE for the reply will be most gratefully received).

Anthony G Wood

Where is our councillor

Our councillor is behaving like an absent landlord I would like to thank Kris Hopkins, the Conservative leader of the Bradford Council, for his concerns over the temporary staff shortages at the Keighley Labour Party office.

As he accuses our hard working and well respected Labour MP Ann Cryer of being an absent landlady (KN 27/3/08), I would like to ask him where he is. Apart from seeing his weekly photo shoot in the paper, I have never met him personally in the Worth Valley Ward. Recently, in the Keighley News, Mr Hopkins spoke in derogatory terms of myself and my Labour friends, I would like to point out that the only time I have ever had the privilege of meeting Mr Hopkins was at a joint meeting of the Keighley and Bradford Trades Union Councils in Bradford: my left-wing Labour friends seemed to suit him then!

I know Mr Hopkins is very busy leading Bradford Council and being a prospective parliamentary candidate, but surely after some eight years in office he can do better than to hurl criticism against those he opposes. Mr Hopkins's letters remind me of an old Chinese saying I once saw: "Confucius he say, he who slings mud loses ground". I would respectfully ask my opponent at the forthcoming local elections to speak about policy rather than personality.

If I had been leading Bradford Council for eight years I would be telling the people of the Worth Valley what I had achieved for them, his letters would suggest that he has, in effect, nothing to report in the way of achievement for the community he claims to serve.

Keith E Dredge (Worth Valley Labour Party)

Humiliating and shameful

I find it extremely difficult to understand the mentality of any intelligent individual who can in any way support the present position the MP Ann Cryer now finds herself, in what is, I believe, her abuse of the trust her constituents placed in her.

On March 5, 2008, the MP Ann Cryer abstained from what was one of, if not the, most important decision of her entire political career, her abstention without any support for the wishes of over 85 per cent of the British public for a referendum, is, I believe, nothing short of an act of treason and support of a fascist act.

My belief in the democratic process is now more than ever deeply flawed by the actions of this woman and this Government, who do not have the right to sign away or allow to be signed away by abstention, 1,000 years of proud British history in favour of a European super state without our permission.

For this woman and this Government to be allowed to insult the memory of the many thousands of our war dead and injured who sacrificed everything for the sovereignty, freedom and future of this country is, apart from treason, humiliating and shameful - the mild rebuke of this woman by the likes of Kris Hopkins and Dorothy Clamp do nothing to endear my support for their weak actions as politicians in opposition, screaming from the rooftops of Westminster in dissent of this Government and a massive vote of no confidence in them would suffice, shame on them all.

Peter Clarke, Moorhouse Lane, Oxenhope

Need to abandon Hope

Last week my Christian Viewpoint was published in the Keighley News.

I wanted to stand up and be counted. However, I missed out, as the wrong name was printed after my column.

My name is Audrey Drake (not Audrey Hope as printed). I would like to abandon Hope' as soon as possible.

Audrey Drake, Oxenhope Methodist Church, West Drive, Oxenhope