My only objection to the by-passes is the point of where to put them. The countryside surrounding the A65 is either within the national park or part of an AONB - or so I have been lead to believe. The settle by-pass has obviously been a boon - or has it? With little regard to the town, quarry lorries and motorcyclists terrorise us on a daily basis, at all times of the day and night. The A65 is a handy short cut and race track for the lorries/tourists/company reps and motorcyclists. It's a far fetched idea but couldn't we force some of these people onto the roads already widened, and motorways already built for them, ie the A66/M62 etc.

I applaud the comment made by Sir Max Hastings whe he says that 'it wouldn't matter if he never saw London again'. As a foremer townie who thankfully had a father who believed and still does that fresh country air is king, i was introduced to rural britain at a frightfully young age, sometimes albeit kicking and screaming at times. The day that my brothers and I chose Ingleton falls over Blackpool sealed my future. Townies should not be able to buy weekend cottages thus destroying the area and housing propects for residents. Also, government should invest more in the rural economy so that folks such as me could work locally instead of commuting 130 miles per day to/from Manchester airport.

Another case of the urban majority, ignorant of the countryside, forcing its views upon a rural minority. As a hunt supporter, I apreciate that other people may have differing views, however, no-one has a right, especially the government, to discriminate against a minority. If this was an issue concerning any other ethnic minority, the civil liberties and race relations people would be up in arms. I wholeheartedly agree with the former TV presenter Robin Page.

You say these RESPECTABLE people are thrown in jail along side muggers & murderers. Then they too are muggers and murderers for killing foxes (living creatures) that just want to survive just like humans. They deserve all they get.

The view that waders eggs were harvested on Scottish Islands is wrong. It was gull and auk eggs that were harvested and to imply that this included waders is dishonest. The point about the hedgehogs is that they will wipe out the breeding birds in time and face starvation themselves. They should not be on the islands in the first place but now they are there it is clear that some kind of action is necessary. Whatever the long or short term view is the hedgehogs are sentenced to die anyway and relocation has been proved not to work. Still, we will ply the cute and fluffy game until all the waders are gone too.

I'm a new resident to the Dale's National Park, and before coming to live here I'd worked in an old Victorian borough market in Halifax selling fish, I thoroughlly enjoyed my time working there, as for many years, after leaving school, I'd always worked for big companys.

But one day, one of our suppliers asked me if I was available to work for him at a Farmers Market over a couple of weekends, and feeling quite intrigued about the Farmers Market set up, I did a little research, rang him back, and said yes.

So for the next two Sundays I was going to be selling whole trout, fillet trout, smoked trout, Angora socks and home made honey. The first sunday was at Upper mill, and what a delightful little village not far from Oldham, where apparently the film "Yanks" was filmed with Richard Gere , so they were having a theme weekend to remember the making of the film. The atmosphere was really good, and by 2pm I'd sold everything I'd took with me, I have to say though there was one let down of that particular day, the E.H.O turn up and caught alot of us with are pants down for wont words, thats the european goverment for you!

But other than that I wasn't put off, for the following weekend was at Holmfith, were "Last of the Summer Wine" is filmed, and I couldn't of pick a better weekend to say yes too, yes you've properly guessed they were filming for the new serie's of "Last of the Summer Wine".

I never got chance to go and watch any of the filming, as I found out from my research, and correct me if I'm, but the first Farmers Market in England was at Holmfirth, I was so busy, that I could of sold twice over what I'd taken with me. So when I looked up about Farmers Markets for the Yorkshire Dales, I was most surprised and shocked to find that there is hardly any Farmers Markets at all.

I thoroughlly enjoyed those two Sundays, and if anybody was to ask me to sell there produce's at a Farmers Market I'd snap there hand of and be there in a flash! It's a great day out for all, and also a very good way of doing your weekly, or monthly shopping. I now work in Settle at a family Butchers, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I have followed the arguments of the Countryside Alliance and others from this side of the 'urban-rural' divide with increasing annoyance. Many, but by no means all, landowners, farmers included, insist that they are the only people fit to hold views on the management of our countryside. They claim to be the true guardians of the country and yet in my county I can walk along many a green lane or public footpath (those not ploughed under!) and hear barely a twitter of bird-song or the buzz of an insect. Sure there are places where this is not true and landowners, such as JSR farms, who do their utmost to work with the countryside and wildlife and not against it. But then again I see Highway Boundary markers 4-5 yards INTO ploughed fields, headlands gone and verges ploughed; or sprayed sterile, weed-seed and insect life, vital to birds and mammals alike, gone. Many conservationists and scientists ARE experts on wildlife and nature and it is possible that some know more than some landowners (for example the farmer who wanted to shoot a kestrel to protect his pheasant chicks!!!).

Equally many of those who enjoy the countryside for its leisure are country-folk themselves. We who walk footpaths for example are not all 'townies'.

I was born and raised in the countryside, have lived and worked in it, working on farms, country estates and for wildlife groups. I do indeed know the difference between wheat and wheatears, being the grandson of a farmer and the son of a grain merchant as well as a bird-watcher of thirty-years plus.

It is perfectly possible to live and work in the countryside without turning said countryside into a sterile crop factory or pickled game preserve.

Farmers, I know, often farm so intensively because subsidies encourage them to do so, so let us lobby for a change in subsidies through consultation with farmers, conservationsists, leisiure interests (in which many landowners already participate)and so on. Let us get over this stupid us and them attitude. I know too that there are problems with widespread access to farming lands and with maintaining the integrity of crops (for example)- free from invasive weeds, with the protection of livestock and such matters, but these are issues that can be addressed and resolved, not by banning access but by managing it!

I'm sick of the pro-hunt group, the anti-access group and so on within the Countryside Alliance telling all that they speak for me - they do not and never will. I speak for myself, such is democracy. I disagree with hunting for pleasure, for that is the truth behind fox-hunting, duck-shooting, pheasant shooting and so forth, (and yes I know such shooting interests do provide income for land-owners but let us not forget that leisure and tourism, excluded from many shooting areas, are major contributors to the rural economy - larger indeed than hunting and shooting).

Pathetic arguments such as the one that a ban on hunting with dogs will lead to a ban on fishing - ridiculous - are indications that the pro-hunting lobby views thepublic as stupid enough to fall for this false logic. Own up - you enjoy it! Be honest! The public is not stupid, as a whole, farmers are not all stupid peasants grubbing in the dirt, landed gentry are not all fossilized despots born with a gun in their hands, not all conservationists are wooly-headed know-nothing dreamers, walkers are not all city-bred hooligans bent on destruction and disease spreading. Such polarized and bigotted views do nothing for any of us. But please not all farmers are experts, even at farming. Why should farming be the only occupation where all its members are experts? They are human with good and bad, skilled and inept alike.

Walkers, nature-lovers, conservationists, farmers, estate owners, foresters, we all have a common goal - a pleasant, self-sustaining, bio-diverse and profitable countryside and yes this is a SINGLE goal! Come on let's all grow up and get our heads together to keep this country green and pleasant, decent and productive. It is quite possible to farm a field, to grow a fine crop of wheat or barley and still have a healthy bird and insect population around the fringes; to see trees between fields, good a-shape hedging; walkable footpaths (which lets face it pre-date the modern field-systems they allegedly 'cut-across')echoing the human history of the land; dogs on leads; ground-nesting birds; (who knows perhaps we may see pheasant-farming); organic-farms alongside non-organic; leisure and work co-existing in a sensible balance. We of the countryside can never hope to educate the folk of urban Britain about rural matters of those urbanites are banned from the same countryside, alienated all the more. Retreating into polarized and antagonistic groups does not bring anyone to a better understanding and does not help those seeking rural leisure to co-exist with those pursuing rural work.

This focus on hunting and access is also taking attention away from more important matters, urban sprawl, awful planning controls, bad building developments, the 'commuterisation of villages, the loss of rural services and business. (I can get no subsidy or grant to help found my own rural business by the by!) These are among the matters that matter. Let's all get down to them and discuss our problems like the educated adults we are - OR ARE WE!

I applaud the attitude of the Duke of Westminster and any other like-minded landowners. I have recently returned to the East Riding from the Scottish Highlands and was delighted to discover Buzzards and Red Kites again in the area where they were absent before I headed north.

There is a long way to go to redress the balance as regards wildlife damage through land-uses but land-owners from small farmers to Dukes have a chance to be at the forefront of improvements and to make a very real and lasting change for the better. In my own area JSR farms have done much work to this end. I only hope others can do the same and protect wildlife for something other than shooting.

I and my husband spend a fair amount of time in the Yorkshire Dales and have holidayed in Swaledale, Lunedale etc etc, in fact we lived in a country village for several years, leaving reluctantly to return to town for work purposes.

However, we have been and are concerned about the increasing number of farms for sale in recent years and were absolutely appalled at the fiasco the Government made of the foot and mouth situation. A huge number of animals were slaughtered needlessly- a political strategy to cut subsidies, I opine, or some similar reason.

Blair is totally ignorant, as are most ministers in Westminster, of the problems that have been brought to the farming communities since going into Europe. But ,worse than that,neither he nor them gives a damn. So, unless the voters of the country get off their backs and campaign alongside the farmers a to get Blair and his co-horts out, this country will sink even further into the mire. (But they won't suffer. They forget that producing our own food helped enormously during the war years and many strong country lads lost their lives in the effort to save this Island. Now it is being given away, lock, stock and barrel.)

I am afraid to voice the thought that it is a forlorn hope because the majority of people in the towns are happy as long as they get their foreign holidays and don't even think where their food comes from. We are guilty of buying supermarket milk because we just couldn't keep up with the costs of the home delivery service but I still don't understand why the supermarkets are sqeezing the farmers pricewise- it is more to do with profits than consumer demands for cheaper milk.

Yours supportively,
(anonymous)

It seems to me highly likely that the current vogue for paved sterile gardens with mose plants and bushes in pots does not provide safe nesting places. Hence chicks (and eggs, don't forget the spectacular increase in the Magpie population) are at much greater risk from predators. I have also seen car stickers blaming the decline on birds of prey. Perhaps the birds are just moving out of built up areas.

The ARBRE trial scheme was a very interesting and potentially really viable project. Is it another case of the powerful Nuclear lobby putting the stoppers on a renewable alternative energy source? One still remembers the way trials of the energy-generating wave-utilising 'duck' were 'got at' by this lobby. One problem which was apparent in the trial ARBRE power plant was the distance separating the furnace and the turbine. Obviously a source of inneficiency which could have been designed out. It was a project definitely worthy of continuation. It was costing a mere pittance compared with some other ill-fated government-aided schemes, e.g. The foolish Greenwich Dome! I hope the farmers concerned will receive appropriate compensation!

I have just written a project about wind farms stressing their importance for the future.

www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~geo1mjt

Wind power does not produce harmful waste products or any emissions. With the wind power industry growing there needs to more acceptance of wind farms in order to meet the targets set out in the Renewable Obligation Act.

Among the carbon neutral technologies wind power is one of the cheapest. Unlike nuclear, wind power will not leave a legacy of radioactive waste for future generation, as there are no harmful waste products or any emissions. Although the benefits of wind turbines are well known people are often not in favour of their development because of the noise they produce and the visual impact they have on the environment. However, if our electricity supply has to evolve then so too must our landscape.

Sir Bernard quote "Any minister who approves such schemes will go down in history as the perpetrator of the greatest environmental disaster of the 20th Century."

What would Sir Bernard say about a nuclear power plant or a nuclear waste disposal unit in the Dales? "The Minister is a visionary!"

Wind power it is clean and safe fuel. No chance of catching any disease from wind turbines.

Like many others I had to leave the countryside over 2 decades ago because jobs, public transport and essential services were disappearing. No farmers or other country people cared at all at the time, and certainly showed no signs of getting up to march on these issues. Nor did they care about the increasing use of chemicals and the destruction of countryside wildlife habitats, even though they often remembered well the better yields they used to get before the chemicals industry moved in on them ('Yields are lower now - but The Ministry tells us to...).
Why suddenly be concerned now? These are hardly new problems - the needs of rural communities were just as ignored during years of Tory government as they are now. You will have to excuse we exiles if we appear cynical about the real motivation behind the Liberty and Livelihood march. If in doubt, look at the interests and funding behind the Countryside Alliance, listed on the following website: http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/pages/Countryside_Alliance.html

I would support anyone marching for a return to small sustainable farms, as chemical free as possible, which provide more jobs, thus supporting more services in rural areas. But not if they have been suckered by the usual big landowning and company interests for the latter's own purposes.

As for the loss of village shops, affordable local housing and public transport - just try city life. Health services are abysmal, public transport dangerous and unaffordable, affordable housing non-existent. And we have to put up with unbreatheable carcinogenic air, round the clock noise, muggings, expensive and tasteless shrinkwrapped supermarket foods, loss of local greengrocers, dramatic loss of the wonderful range of English varieties of fruit and veg. The government takes no more notice of the needs of ordinary city people than it does of ordinary rural people. As to fox-hunting - funny how they manage without it in many European countries. A specialist licensed hunter with a gun is brought in when a fox becomes too much of a nuisance, or when a wolf becomes dangerous.

Plumbers, electricians etc seem to be in short supply in London too - driven out by high house prices. But I also notice that secondary education no longer provides practical courses and technical education (other than some computer use), for people who might prefer not to take a fully academic route. Well, in London at least. Perhaps it is different in rural areas. The Craft Design Technology courses I have encountered all seem to be aimed at providing fodder for packaging factories.

Wow! What a one sided, predjudiced view...
More talking definitely required. I too use my Landrover for work, and regularly walk and climb, but your attitude and mindset would make Bush proud!

It is wrong to think that most people in the countryside are against a ban and that it is only "townies" who are backing this bill. I myself live in a rural area where there is only a small number of housese 30 in total. The rest which is open countryside.I am well against foxhunting and there are lots of others like me, I have put out petitons in the surrounding area about a ban on fox hunting and out of 325 only 40 refused to sign it! so it just goes to show a lot of the statistics are wrong.

Farmers in this country seem to be very reluctant to diversify. Our nation's cosumers are about the most receptive in the world to change, in London organic produce is no longer a fad but accepted standard. The rest of the country will follow soon, but we will continue to import until our own farmers get off their high horses accept that what they have been doing for the last 50 years and the way they have been doing it is now an invalid business practice. And I'm afraid they might just have to take a little cut in pay for a while, but hey, the rest of the world takes them all the time.
Nobody wants all your low quality milk! stop putting these animals through hell.

Well, I am sorry to say that I can't feel emotional about the probable demise of British farming. It is just another major British industry to bite the dust. Only a few years ago in Keighley, we had a community which thrived around the two world-leading machine tool manufacturers and a large portion of the British textile industry - another world leader in quality. Now we have nothing.

It is quite unrealistic to suppose that farming can not fade away just as other industries have done. Once it happens, it only takes one generation to accept the new situation. The farmland wouldn't be entirely unoccupied - there would at least be one or two little tourists' "museum farms" to show how things were in the "olden days" (the day before yesterday), just as there are now mills converted to pathetic little showpieces displaying textile machinery which should still be running.

I do not often agree with you, but this time I wholeheartedly support your views. The same conversation takes place on a regular basis in our place.

Re Ragwort report
One of the biggest landowners in the country, namely the Government, and in particular the Dept. of Transport are the worst offenders for allowing Ragwort to flourish. Just drive along any Motorway and see for yourself just how it proliferates.
I hope that DEFRA takes the Dept of Transport to court and fines them or better still imprisons the minister. (Some hopes).

John has mentioned "cynical political reasons" - well, let's get more cynical. What group gives us even greater insurance against a ban on all country sports than those millions of anglers? Of course, it is that group of shooters who were allowed onto the moors during the F&M shut-down, when the rest of us stayed at home; and the salmon anglers who were allowed onto the banks of a northern river when ""rdinary anglers" weren't. Now, these people can obviously bend everybody to their whim, so there is no chance that they will let their sports be banned, is there?

On the other hand, probably nothing would suit them better than to have to have everyone else shut out, since they can always rely on a special dispensation.

My wife and I are regular visitors to the Yorkshire Dales for walking holidays. We cherish the peace and tranquility of this beautiful landscape. It is absurd that "recreational" vehicles are allowed to use green lanes and so produce appalling noise, pollution and damage to these ancient monuments. A voluntary code will not work: only legislation can remove the problem.