Tag: Lancashire

Happy with my hippy theory on the Ribble

ribble_start

I have this sort of hippy style belief that rivers don’t have a start and finish but are just a continuous flow of water in a cycle involving clouds-land-sea-clouds. I was asked the other day where the River Ribble starts – having given my hippy theory and receiving a blank look in return, I went through the stock answers. But I do wonder why humans feel the need to have a beginning and an end to everything? We must have a measurement too – how long, how high, how deep, how wide… etc; we’re always trying to portray something that’s natural in terms of a man-made unit. Perhaps it’s just another of our attempts to feel in control of the natural world. Instead of calculating it we should just embrace Nature, like a true landscape artist would. I told my friend that there is a difference between the ‘source’ and the ‘start’ of a river. The Ribble’s source is mainly the watershed of Cam Fell and surrounding fells. Water trickles down the fells forming Cam Beck, Gayle Beck and lots of smaller tributaries which join to form the Ribble near Selside, at the place shown in my photo – a rather boring ‘start’ for this mighty river on its 75-mile voyage to the Irish Sea don’t you think? I prefer my hippy idea.
I also caught some lovely autumn light and a cloudless sky above Penyghent on my way back down Ribblesdale today.

penyghent

County confusion? Not 'ere lad.

paythorne

According to the Guardian, Yorkshire is ‘actually four counties’. I almost spat out my tea before I realised that I’d actually paid for it therefore it shouldn’t be wasted. So I flung my flat cap at the ferret instead. Calm down, I thought… if someone was to ask me anything about Middlesex what would I answer (is it a London suburb?). Yesterday I watched a swollen river Ribble flowing under the smart bridge at Paythorne (picture). This tiny village is in Yorkshire despite the fact a shabby sign nearby proclaims the area as being part of Lancashire. Recent winds have seen that sign take on a bit of a jaunty angle… poor workmanship – allowing Lancastrians to temporarily take care of this part of Yorkshire was obviously a big mistake.

I'm no NIMBY but…

greengate

It’s not so long ago that the government’s major political push concerned letting local people decide on local matters – it was called Building the Big Society wasn’t it? I presume from the decision last week to allow the construction of yet more housing in my village of Long Preston in Ribblesdale that the Big Society idea has now been abandoned.
Residents didn’t want any more housing, the Parish Council were against the development and the Highways Department objected to plans for the site. However, the Yorkshire Dales National Park’s appeal inspector, Norfolk-born musician William Weston, gave the go-ahead for the development.
Well, at least the park authority can can say to the faceless Whitehall bureaucrats ‘look what good boys and girls we are, we’ve ticked one of your required boxes’ and provided some ‘much-needed’ and also ‘affordable’ housing.
Hands up anyone who knows what ‘affordable’ means in the context of housing.
The site on Green Gate Lane lies within the Long Preston Conservation Area and I have to admit it is currently a little run down, but that in itself doesn’t necessarily mean it must be turned over to a developer who then makes a fat profit at the expense of a lot of misery to others.
We are talking here of 13 houses – maybe not a lot for a town but a fair percentage of a small village – perhaps 300 extra cars journeys per week down a single track lane which joins on to School Lane (self explanatory) then on to the busy A65 (which in Long Preston alone feeds 30+ direct vehicular accesses).
The cottage on the left of my photo at the junction between School Lane and Green Gate Lane was partly demolished by a wagon trying to negotiate a left turn a couple of years ago.
The authority claims there isn’t enough housing in the National Park yet hundreds of properties in Long Preston and elsewhere in the Dales are second homes or holiday lets. Local estate agents are packed with houses for sale. And what is the point of building more houses when there have been very few new jobs created in the vicinity for donkey’s years, and also the schools and authorities are scratting round for funds and resources.  I know first hand that  slow internet connections in the Dales drastically prohibit the creation of new businesses for employment.
I get the feeling that the park cares little for Long Preston – you’ll not see one of those quaint little sheep motifs signifying you’re entering the National Park in this village, despite Long Preston being the park’s ‘gateway’ from Lancashire.
I wonder what the planners’ decision would have been had someone applied to turn the site into a horse riding centre – or even a ‘horse hotel’ for the newly designed Pennine Bridleway which passes close by – which would certainly have benefited the community? Or how about a proposal for a youth centre or hard-play area for local children? Unfortunately these wouldn’t have ticked any boxes.
The thin edge of the developing wedge was pierced into Long Preston a few years back and it is now pushing open the door even further. I’m no NIMBY, I care about fair play and this Dales community.

Countryside rip-up is a rip-off

train

The thought of ripping up thousands of miles of beautiful countryside, blighting properties, wrecking wildlife habitat and ancient woodland just to create a high-speed rail link to London (HS2) leaves this normally placid chap seething. That’s before I even mention the cost. As far as I can see the only benefit will be that you’ll be able to get far away from the capital a little bit quicker. If the hypothetical figures about creating thousands of jobs and how the North and Midlands will be so much better off actually comes off I’ll eat my flat cap. I’m not saying I don’t believe in railways, I just think we should be making better use of what we’ve got, improving stock, bringing back more local lines and increasing the number of people working on the railways.

I thought of this while I was struggling up a hill outside Horton-in-Ribblesdale last week. I made the excuse to stop to watch this train working down the Settle-Carlisle line beaneath Penyghent. The line is underused by the quarry owners who prefer to send huge clanking trucks through the villages. And there’s a perfectly good line from Lancashire that joins up with the Settle-Carlisle line at Hellifield… but there’s no passenger timetable for it. Tourists bringing business and prosperity to this to this part of the Dales have to take an hour or more detour.

I assume the locals and landowners were up in arms when the Victorians decided to rip up this bit of the countryside to build the Settle-Carlisle railway but now it’s here – thanks mainly to volunteers – we should be making the most of it instead of pandering to some political pipe-dream.

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