Time to tackle this eyesore

2:59pm Thursday 1st May 2008

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I WAS astounded at the claim for Pickering being in line for "far reaching improvements".

I scanned the list in the hope of finding anything far reaching in the list other than the suggestion I made seven years ago that the Westgate approach to the town was a disgrace for its mass of electricity and telephone wires with supporting poles, which precluded any possibility of solving the problem of parking and damaged roadside verges. Does that ring a bell?

Just look at the terms these proposals are couched in, "exploring the possibility", "the possibility of", "holding talks", "encouraging the setting up", etc, etc. It all sounds like an excuse as Mike Potter so aptly quoted Di Keal's remark last week "so let's do nothing again shall we".

The real problems are not "in line" for any improvement it appears, yet we have all been waiting for improvements for years.

What happened to the grand traffic survey and its long lasting improvements, pedestrian safety in Bridge Street, provision of walking and cycling routes, extension of 30mph speed limits to town boundaries, general cark parking measures, so far only the Monday closure of the Market Place on a trial basis has been achieved, and what an unpopular measure that appears to be! It's all just talk or "let's do nothing again shall we".

But, and important though these measures may be, I haven't mentioned the "biggy" yet.

I mean the really guilty party in the do-nothing brigade. Ryedale District Council has had 22 years of doing nothing at all about the biggest eyesore in Pickering - or Ryedale - or possibly even North Yorkshire. I refer to the coal yard. Come to that, the town council has been pretty shy about it too. It should have been snapped up countless years ago when British Rail relinquished its hold on this prime site, and quite a few opportunities have been missed since. It holds the key to the most badly needed improvements for town prosperity. Namely:

• The removal of a most ugly vista of degeneration any town could possibly have wished upon itself.

• Provision for the dire need of a public open space.

• Extension of car parking urgently needed for the summer visitor influx.

• Alignment of Vivis Lane with the Ropery and reducing the traffic light phases from four to three preventing the jamming of Pickering roundabout and consequent traffic queues from the south and the east west flows.

So to all you councillors, local, district and county, at least tell us what Pickering's future really is, or are we to be consigned to another 20 years of "let's do nothing again shall we?"

James Hurlock, Pickering.