Clamping and gritting your views (From Keighley News)

Clamping and gritting your views

7:40am Thursday 7th January 2010

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Keep on printing letters about clamping complaints

• In the issue of the week before Christmas we asked if readers were fed up of reading letters of complaint about the Changegate car park, at Haworth. Here is a selection of replies.

I have to tell you that we at the Brontë Parsonage Museum are heartily fed up with it.

We and pretty well every other provider of visitor services in Haworth are fed up of facing the wrath of ordinary law-abiding people who have been clamped and forced to pay a £75 release fee when they believe themselves innocent. We are fed up of having to explain to them, some humiliated and in tears, some shaking with anger that the perpetrator of what they feel to have been an assault, is operating within the law. This is particularly difficult for us when the people are either elderly or disabled and unaware of the concept of clamping, or are from overseas or Scotland where clamping is illegal.

I will not bore your readers with the catalogue of unjust clamping incidents that have occurred over the years and continue to occur routinely in Haworth’s Changegate car park, because they must be fed up of reading about them. But those of us who have to witness the hurt of those who have been humiliated cannot be bored by it, simple humanity demands a sympathetic response and, besides, as your correspondents have made very clear over the years, clamping deters visitors from coming to Haworth and it damages its economy.

The owners of the Changegate car park are operating within the law. They have been clamping for a long time, they are hardened against entreaty and, as opposition to clamping has grown, they have dug in and assumed the immovable posture of Yorkshireman contra mundum. Clamping will only stop in Haworth if there is either a change in the law or a change in the ownership of the car park. We at the Parsonage Museum have worked hard, over the years, with our MP Ann Cryer and with other tourism interests to try and effect a change in the law on clamping. Last year our hopes were raised when the Home Office commissioned an inquiry into the vehicle immobilisation industry from the Security Industry Agency but, far from curtailing clamping, the agency’s recommendations of operator registration, maximum penalties and an appeals procedure, will allow “clamping as usual” in the Changegate car park.

If national government has missed an opportunity, perhaps we should now look to our local government for a solution. The Bradford MDC already owns two car parks in Haworth; why not a third? The record shows that the owner of the Changegate car park, Mr Ted Evans, is a resourceful entrepreneur so why not make him an offer? Or failing that, at least broker a deal with one of the many successful car park companies which do not clamp? I know that individual city councillors and senior officers are as frustrated as we are that clamping continues to blight Haworth’s reputation and its economy.

With the Worth Valley’s three city councillors occupying important positions in 2010, there is the opportunity for a bold move: Glen Miller is chairman of the Keighley Area Panel, Kris Hopkins is council leader and Peter Hill is Lord Mayor, surely this is the time to resolve Haworth’s problem and let all three of them make it their New Year’s resolution. In the meantime, if people are sufficiently aggrieved by clamping to write to the Keighley News, I hope the paper will continue to give them a voice.

Stephen Whitehead

Brontë Society Trustee for Conservation, Brontë Parsonage Museum

I for one do not think you should drop the letters about the clamping straight into the recycling bin. To do so would simply mean that this thick-skinned person has won the final battle. It would mean that the people’s spokesperson had given in. Instead, it would be more appropriate for you and every local news editor to pass each and every complaint to their MP and head of council .

To ensure fair play each car park should either charge the customer for the extra hour that they are over stayed or to charge them at a barrier for the total hours they have parked.

Clamping should be totally outlawed by Parliament but unless the MPs know the scale of the problem they stay blissfully unaware.

Tony Earnshaw

Bradford Road, Keighley

Leisure centre car park is dangerous

Would you please allow me to ask our public authority how busy pedestrian places have been left in highly dangerous underfoot conditions during the recent icy periods.

The Keighley Leisure Centre, in Victoria Park, used extensively by the public, is one of the places to suffer during the last two weeks. The car park has been left completely ice bound and extremely dangerous. Those suffering must have been the pensioners on their early morning swim sessions. All have suffered with slipping and some falling.

As a result attendances have fallen and others driving away frightened to get out of their cars. The leisure staff have tried to make the place accessible by clearing the footpaths but have had no chance with the big car park.

The roads in and out of the park have been very difficult and at times almost impassable.

The high cost of opening and running the centre will have been the same despite the low attendances by the public due to these dangers. Bradford Council quite correctly tries to promote their all round keep fit facility yet for some reason, someone does not bother to have the car park gritted and made safe for the public to use.

Who is responsible for allowing the complete breakdown and neglect for people’s safety by not gritting these much used, busy public areas of the town.

Brian Kenealy,

Highfield Road, Keighley.

Indomitable Yorkshire spirit saved the day

Visiting my mother-in-law the weekend before Christmas, we were caught up in the adverse weather conditions and found ourselves trapped at the bottom of Dean Lane, in Newsholme Dean. By Monday morning we had decided that if we wanted to get home to Norfolk in time for Christmas, we would have to try and get the car to the top of the lane — a tall order considering the severe snow and ice. As soon as neighbours and passing walkers (it’s a popular cross country route) saw our struggle, they came to help.

Together we dug, pushed and heaved. Finally, three strenuous hours later we were eventually towed to the top of the hill by a local farmer. Through your pages we would like to send our heartfelt thanks to all those who stopped to help that day — we were humbled by such kindness and generosity; and grateful for the indomitable Yorkshire spirit!

Penny Shacklock & Simon Davies

Glebe Farm Cottage, Church Road, Carleton Rode, Norfolk

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