If we had had devolution before now, I bet we wouldn't still be waiting for the A64 to be dualled - Carl Les

For some time now we've wanted to drive the NC500, the 500 mile route around the northern coast that now gives more purpose and focus to a touring holiday. The successful marketing of this route provides an enjoyable experience but also brings the wealth of employment into a large, sparse rural area. We wanted to go out of season to avoid the host of camper vans that frequent this route in the summer, and the midges, so I had booked a detailed itinerary like a route march.

Such is the popularity even out of season that bookings can’t be cancelled or changed without penalties. I had a dilemma when the Local Government Association annual conference was rearranged following the General Election for the same week, but for years I've put duty before self, often at the expense of those close, so I decided the penalties tipped the balance.

Scotland is a remote place, in all its grandeur, but it seems less remote now. Membership of the European Union has been good for Scotland, as it has been for the other remote regions of Europe, and parts of North Yorkshire. European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) have been used to good effect to promote connectivity, building improved roads, and new bridges replacing ferries that can be over busy at times and disrupted by bad weather at others.

We stayed beside the Kylesku Bridge on the first night of Storm Ashley when any ferry would almost certainly have been suspended. The bridge adds elegant form to function, a seal grey expanse of concrete arcing its way across the entrance to the loch.

Broadband is as widely available as it is essential and mobile phone masts are more common, because of demand, as are turbines providing the essential services of power and communications. They are absorbed into the landscape and accepted as essential infrastructure.

Most communities benefit from 24 hour filling stations, often with EV charging, operated by pay as you go terminals, and many have community hubs funded by ERDF.

The one that impressed me most was the Torridon one, run by a small staff so providing much needed year round jobs, comprising a café, small business centre, art gallery, meeting rooms that double as a cinema, community administration like our parish councils, and a well-equipped fitness room – all next door to the local medical centre. The next community is 12 miles away, along an improved road, single track with well-signed passing places.

I don't get the green position on road building. From the time of the Romans road building has improved to meet the needs of the traffic that travels along it. Traffic has evolved. Since the end of WW2 we have had an aspiration to have our own transport, to travel where we want, and when. Public transport has a key role to play, but unless its community buses or cars it needs a critical mass to be sustainable, and the carrot of incentives works better than the stick of encouraging congestion.

Surely if we succeed in producing all zero-emission vehicles they will need better roads to travel along. To not provide them is negative in the extreme. Tell that to communities waiting for bypasses, travellers held up in unnecessary queues, families and firms dealing with the aftermath of collisions.

50 years ago for 3 years I travelled regularly to and from Glasgow on the A66 and the A6 which over those three years saw Penrith , Carlisle and Gretna bypassed. To our shame the A66 is still not dual carriageway along the 60 miles from Penrith to Scotch Corner - there’s only 17 left to do - and we were held up in a crawl in the North Yorkshire section with the cross overs with bad safety records.

How many adjacent capital cities in Europe – Madrid, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw, Vienna are not connected by a good, safe dual carriageway as well as train and air? London and Edinburgh.

If we had had devolution before now, I bet we wouldn't still be waiting for the A64 to be dualled.

And the tea towel? Sold on behalf of the Torridon community car scheme administered from the community hub. Seemed like the right thing to buy as a souvenir.

Carl Les is the leader of North Yorkshire Council.