Hebden Bridge flats plan unsuitable for former mills – Yorkshire Post Letters

THE proposal to convert Linden Mill in Hebden Bridge from Arts Mill studios to flats (The Yorkshire Post, August 9) highlights how the pressure on councils to approve planning applications for homes is causing planning officers to recommend unsuitable developments.

Local people are against this proposal – there have been 72 objectors and only three letters of support. Your article mentions some of the objections, but not the overriding reason why this application should be refused.

The mill sits in a corner of several streets of terraced housing without gardens. Many of the houses are occupied by families with young children. These streets are effectively play streets for these children. There are also a large number of cats in the neighbourhood who patrol the streets with little road sense.

These streets are cobbled, and the one leading directly to the mill, Linden Road, is in a poor state of repair, as is its pavement.

It is not suitable for the heavy vehicles that would be involved with construction work. As these flats are likely to be occupied by single, and probably young, people, it can be assumed that they will have many deliveries by white vans, grocery delivery vans and take-away home firms.

Far too many such vehicles are driven at speeds excessive for the conditions, not least because of the pressure these drivers are under. There is too high a risk that all this traffic, during construction and thereafter, will lead to a tragic accident, with a child being injured or killed.

I wonder if the councillors who will be considering this application have visited the area? They certainly need to.

This development will irrevocably change the character of a family-friendly community, and should be rejected.

Dilemma for eco protesters

From: Paul Morley,Long Preston, Skipton.

WHEN will all these young people protesting about climate change stop all travel, other than by foot or bicycle?

When will they stop buying cheap throwaway clothes and stop using social media and the devices that go with it?

When those in power have the guts to admit that the main problem behind all this is the fact that the world is overpopulated, then I might start taking it a bit more seriously.

I can’t see me having to worry anytime soon. Everybody wants something done about the problem, but don’t want to have to do anything themselves (Bill Carmichael, The Yorkshire Post, August 13).

In the developed world nobody wants to give up their comfy lifestyles which, if the problem is to be tackled properly, will have to happen.

No more foreign holidays in the sun, no more social media, no more heat and hot water on demand – that’s a step to far so let’s just carry on as we are, demanding things are done but not if it interferes with our lifestyles.

Saving the planet is also something of a misnomer, the Earth has been around for a very long time and has gone through and survived much worse disasters than we have now.

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