Charity walk rap to marks on graves - your views (From Keighley News)

Charity walk rap to marks on graves - your views

7:58am Thursday 18th June 2009

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Rap on knuckles for coverage

I was one of the 850 fantastic ladies who volunteered to give up their Saturday night and raise money for Manorlands on the Midnight Walk. We walked on Bradford Road, supported and encouraged by dozens of volunteer stewards, we were fed and watered at Sainsbury’s and were given tea at the end by some more very lovely volunteers. All these local people gave up their time to raise thousands of pounds for a deserving and very local cause and I for one would like to thank them all.

I just wonder why this benevolent, generous and selfless local act received coverage in your paper extending to less than 50 words? Maybe there was just too much news that week? I know that I, for one, was fulfilled to read at the bottom of page four (in an article three times the size of the walk one) that a local company is closing its Keighley doors and moving to Saltaire. Apparently, its new, much larger premises five miles away are more newsworthy than a co-ordinated effort to raise more than £68,000 for a hospice in Oxenhope?

I hope that you print this letter as I think that less than 50 words is not enough to highlight that in a time when shops are closing and companies are deserting the town, that the people of Keighley can still come together to do something fantastic.

Rachel Bradbury

Keighley

Editor’s note: Fair point Rachel. The information and pictures arrived just before deadline and so space was limited. I have to say though that the publicity leading up to the event was extensive.

Kill this urban myth

I am greatly obliged to you for generating some genuine public interest in, and comment on, the crucial issue of traffic congestion in Keighley town centre. At last some people are realising the truth of the “ASDA plus new college — unsustainable pressure on Station Bridge” argument, which the watch and transport committee has been proclaiming for over three years. But let us please kill one urban myth. here is no practical way that the former single line railway arch under Station Bridge would make a realistic pedestrian underpass and I invite your website correspondents to come out of their shadowy anonymity and meet me at Keighley station next week so that I can explain on-site exactly why this is so. Hence the committee’s proposal of what Mick Milner called “an iconic footbridge” between Low Mill Lane top and Sainsbury’s corner, right in the path of the majority of railway commuters.

Miss Varley, of Oakworth, with whom I have discussed traffic issues in some depth on a home visit, regrettably did not take up my invitation to join the traffic panel and writes of “re-arranging deckchairs”. This has some truth in that very few people have recognised the danger of the real iceberg which is bearing down upon us. It is that, quite simply, we collectively bring too many cars, too frequently, into the town centre. We must all share responsibility for being part of the problem and we all need to co-operate in accepting solutions which will inevitably require some restrictions on vehicle movement in the central area.

In the absence of any other Keighley-based committee being sufficiently concerned to debate the congestion issue, the town council has established a traffic (advisory) panel to enlist public comment and recommendation. This panel has met twice and is already making a meaningful contribution, which I am authorised by committee to place before highway engineers at Jacobs Well, Bradford. I can also assure your readers that additional public contributions will be seriously considered by the town council.

Cllr Graham Mitchell

Chairman, The Watch and Transport Committee, Keighley Town Council

Record appreciation of Ann

A Daily Telegraph reporter in search of dirt would have found it hard to find a Keighley elector of any party colour who would question Ann Cryer’s integrity.

Staying with one’s family where accommodation was available was clearly sensible and the slur implied that her son also stayed there is also seeking mountains where no molehills exist.

It is a pity that this should have arisen at a time when she had already decided to leave Parliament to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, having achieved more in her nine years than many a Member has over a much longer period — an Act to protect girls from forced marriages and a restriction on the practice of girls going to Pakistan and returning with a husband who was entitled to stay, are evidence of her tenacity and determination.

It would still be appropriate for the town council to set aside any party feelings and to present to her a scroll recording the appreciation of Keighley for her work. I appreciate that her constituency goes beyond Keighley’s boundaries but this is an opportunity for the town council to act on behalf of its citizens on a situation which is unlikely to recur for some time to come.

Frank Pedley,

Gisburn Road, Hellifeld.

Tyre marks across graves

I write about the state of Oakworth Cemetery in general, in particular the lack of respect as graves are driven over by excavation machinery, ie dumpers/diggers.

My mother and brother are buried there and I have tended their grave for many years.

On my last visit to the cemetery, I was absolutely horrified to see big tyre marks across the grave, which had been caused by some kind of digger/dumper, and as the vehicle had driven over the graves in wet weather the ground had been chewed up. Have they no respect for the dead or the living relatives, what happened to hand digging and wheelbarrows.

I am very upset and extremely angry. I have written to the acting bereavements services manager at Scholemoor Cemetery, in Bradford, as apparently they are in charge of the cemetery.

Neil Bradley

York

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