Yorkshire Dales village facing ruin over timber plan – Yorkshire Post Letters

I HEARD with complete disbelief that the National Park had passed the application from the Ingleborough Estate, Clapham, to transport timber along Thwaite Lane and through the village of Austwick.

Thwaite Lane, which runs from Austwick to Clapham, is an ancient bridleway, at one time a ‘corpse road’. The dead from Austwick were transported along this way to Clapham as there was no burial ground in Austwick until 1890s. This was also the route taken by monks from various abbeys to transport their flocks of sheep (on foot). In recent years it has been a popular walk from Austwick to Clapham, both for residents and visitors.

Can you imagine walking here and meeting an enormous vehicle transporting timber? Where Thwaite Lane meets the crossroads, it would be impossible to turn in a large vehicle, so the ancient walls that have stood for centuries would have to be taken down.

The National Park seems to have no consideration whatsoever for villagers who run the gauntlet of the traffic every day. An estate spokesman was quoted in The Yorkshire Post as saying that Thwaite Lane was “an existing and historical woodland and haulage route”, I would like to know where he found his evidence.

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