Don’t let Whitby be ruled by Dales councillors in North Yorkshire shake-up – Yorkshire Post Letters

THANK you for the excellent article by Andrew Vine (The Yorkhire Post, August 3) 
regarding second homes, Airbnb and the closure of a guest house in Whitby.

As someone who has a longstanding affinity with Whitby, I have long been concerned by the steady decline of the town.

It is not helped by a housing policy that appears to favour second home owners in favour of local people who were born and brought up in the seaside town.

But what worries me is the extent to which Whitby has been neglected by Scarborough Council over recent years – and how its governance will become even more remote when a new unitary council becomes tasked with covering the whole of North Yorkshire.

This raises the totally ridiculous and nonsensical prospect of councillors serving Skipton and rural hamlets close to the border with Lancashire voting on matters pertaining to our coastal towns 100 miles away.

That’s not localism, the favourite word of North Yorkshire’s council leader Carl Les. It is a recipe for chaos unless his authority has a new structure in place that reflects the different priorities of the coast to the Dales. I look forward to the response of Coun Les.

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