YP Letters: '˜Castle' that threw down gauntlet to planners

IT’S very easy to have a go at planning departments (‘Park planners bounced into a bad decision by fake castle folly,’ The Yorkshire Post, August 5). Criticism is on occasion justified, but the rather sarcastic comment piece by David Behrens about a retrospective planning application submitted by the Forbidden Corner visitor attraction near Leyburn represented an unfair kicking.

The Forbidden Corner is a very welcome success story; it makes a significant positive contribution to the local economy. But how can it be right to build a prominent, nearly 10-metre high mock castle in an historic and culturally important landscape, without even bothering to seek planning permission?

Mr Behrens scorned the idea that visitors might mistake it for a real castle. Could anyone really be so gullible? Yes they could. The Dales – a nationally important landscape – need protection from this kind of development.

The planning committee of which I am a member, has now approved enforcement action, requiring that the ‘castle folly’ be demolished and the site restored to its previous condition.