Friday, 17 May, 2002

John Sheard urges all country folk to protest against plans for a Yorkshire regional parliament which, he says, would siphon off invaluable resources to the county's rust belt towns.

SOME 30 years ago, when Ted Heath disastrously decided to reorganise local government, we were living in a small village high in the Pennines which, when the local boundaries changed, was sucked into the grasp of a once prosperous mill town that was, economically, dying on its feet.

The first thing our new loony-Left Labour councillors did was to cancel our twice a week dustbin collection. Instead, council house tenants were each given an extra dustbin. We, as private householders, had to buy ours.

But it did not stop there. Not a single dustman was made redundant or diverted to other duties. They just worked half a week for the same pay. With the extra time, they took "moonlighting" jobs like driving taxies, thus robbing redundant textile workers of the chance of earning an honest penny.

Now I have nothing against binmen. Old textile towns, and there ever-cheerful people, hold a special place in my affections. But I do not enjoy being robbed of local services and amenities because, as someone who owns his own house, I am therefore "rich" and deserving of exploitation.

But I am afraid it is about to happen again if John Prescott achieves his dream of creating a regional parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber. Having made a complete cock-up of transport and the environment, the Deputy Prime Minister now want to do the same with local government.

And as a resident of North Yorkshire, my dustbins are at risk again - as well as my county council, my road network, my superb schools, my libraries, and dozens of other amenities which the present administration provides pretty well overall, despite the fact that it is the largest county geographically in England but has one of the smallest populations.

Apart from facing huge local bills to pay for this unwanted layer of government - as inevitable as death and taxes - as a North Yorkshire resident I shall no doubt again be judged again as rich and exploitable.

Now no one yet knows how such a parliament would be set up but early reports suggest that RMPs (?) would be elected in proportion to the population numbers in their area: i.e., the parliament would be dominated by the big cities of Leeds, Hull, Bradford, and Sheffield.

Big towns like Barnsley, Doncaster, Huddersfield and dozens almost as big would no doubt join with the cities on most votes in the house because they face the same problems: inner city deprivation, unemployment, crime and sink council estates.

And how many votes would we ex-North Yorkshire folk command? Difficult to calculate exactly but, at a rough estimate, the present Craven district would be entitled to one-third of a member (and guess what third that would be?).

Gather Craven together with Richmondshire and add some bits from the Whitby/Scarborough area and we might get a whole RMP. But what chance would he or she have of forcing through a vote of benefit to rural folk?

We have had enough disasters in rural England these past few years: the collapse of farming, a strong pound to deter tourists, BSE and foot and mouth to mention but a few. To add another would turn crisis into calamity.

Despite New Labour's claims that nothing will be done without the support of the people, this Government has a habit of steam-rolling controversial legislation through parliament with the approval of only a handful of the chattering classes in North London.

I'm afraid, folks, that it is once more into the breach time. Again. Man the barricades. Write to your MP. Write to the newspapers. Write to us. If they sneak this one through, life in rural Yorkshire will never be the same again.