Region’s history under attack

THE toll that metal theft is taking on the region has long been documented. Lead stripped from church roofs, brass plaques taken from memorials, even bronze statues stolen from gardens: the common theme is that the amount received in scrap value by the thief is almost always far greater than the value of the item and the cost of the theft, both financial and emotional, to the victim.

Yet a new study by English Heritage shows that metal theft is only part of a spate of crime and vandalism which is laying waste to Yorkshire’s historic assets, the region topping a national table of destruction, with more than a fifth of its historic sites being attacked over the past year.

According to English Heritage, the fact that Yorkshire comes joint top of this table, alongside the North West and the North East, with listed buildings and archaeological sites being raided on a regular basis, is an indicator of the economic deprivation being suffered by the three regions, in effect a symptom of the North-South divide.

Whether or not this is an explanation, however, it cannot become an excuse. The region cannot afford to wait for economic recovery to bring this crime-wave to a natural end, nor can the poverty-stricken state of the perpetrators be a reason not to use the maximum penalties possible as a deterrent.

For the simple fact is that the region’s heritage cannot withstand this type of constant depredation. When such irreplaceable symbols of Yorkshire as the 11th-century Clifford’s Tower in York, or the 12th-century Scarborough Castle, are being attacked by vandals, the region’s history demands urgent protection.