Letters: Rudby cabins plan an improvement

White House nursery was built in the late 70s as both a wholesale and a retail outlet. During the early years, business was good. Now, with the advent of the Sunday trading laws and the huge growth of supermarkets who sell everything, small garden centres and nurseries are finding it harder to remain profitable. At White House Nurseries we are well away from large centres of population on a fairly minor, quiet road. We have had to look for another source of income.

Both national and local government are encouraging diversification of agricultural and horticultural industry. Sites like the one proposed are commonplace in areas of natural beauty like the Lake District.

The removal of the storage sheds mentioned in your article would, without a doubt, enhance the local landscape and would be necessary for the planting of the deep tree and shrub screen around and within the site. This screen, apart from attracting wildlife, would also mean that none of the proposed log cabins would be visible from the road, a huge improvement on the existing former nursery site.

Your reporting of the content of the letters received by Coun Richardson is also misleading. Two letters were received by him and read out at the meeting. These letters were from council members unable to attend. Both were supportive though one did express surprise at the number of log cabins on the application.

Coun Caroline Seymour's worries over traffic levels are groundless. When the nursery was busy there were regularly 50-60 cars per hour coming and going on Spring and Summer weekends and bank holidays. Even now, during the busy months of the year, there are regularly 10 or more large articulated wagons ii, week delivering and collecting from the site.

There is no evidence at all to suggest that people would bring more than 1 car per family.

Before our application was submitted, I wrote to every member of our local parish council inviting them to inspect the plans and visit the to give them an idea of the area involved and of the large amount of tree screening which would be carried out. Only two members accepted this invitation.

A walk around the site would have given them a greater insight into the extensive tree planting and they would have realised how well spaced and secluded the cabins would be.

ANDY DUFF

White Horse Nurseries,

Hutton Rudby.

More talking

Sir, - I am sorry that more people did not attend the meeting organised by Yorkshire Forward and Hambleton District Council to stimulate interest in the Market Town Initiative for which Thirsk has been selected for special funding.

Had they attended, they would have witnessed the yawning gulf that exists between super-annuated blatherers and those that actually get on and do something useful for a town.

Yorkshire Forward is simply another talking shop, another quango which on this occasion has teamed up with the People's Republic of Hambleton in order to crush public enthusiasm by demanding mission statements, steering groups and working parties - before vanishing under a cloud of consultancy fees and action plans that will leave the residents as swindled as they are bemused.

Like most towns, Thirsk boasts a fleet of societies and organisations that covers every aspect of community life from mental health to conservation. Each group is driven by volunteers who prefer "doing" to chattering. Free time is hard to find, to dedicate to these assorted and valuable activities.

The idiotic belief that a representative range of local people might be found to sit on a "steering group" - for nine months - to undertake a social audit that might decide "what needs to be done" could only be dreamed up by a bureaucrat with good holiday pay.

Furthermore, the fact that Hambleton planning department is wanting to associate itself with a project to revitalise our town is like putting foxes in charge of poultry security. This is the department that recently waved through the enormous extension to Tesco which may fatally wound town centre shopping and depress Thirsk even more.

If we are to profit from the small pot of gold promised to us by Yorkshire Forward, my advice is that we should do so on our own terms. We are mature and sensible enough to he able to make a few improvements without wasting time on pointless paperwork.

The talking can be done by the town council. The rest of us can get on with what we know best. Yorkshire Forward should engage reverse gear.

PHILIP TATE

Boltby,

Thirsk.