Dales highs and lows

treewallExcellent autumn light tempted me out into the Dales this week. I’ve been happy with the photographic results and, if my Twitter statistics are anything to go by, so have my followers. Then why do I feel a little down at the end of such a productive and enjoyable seven days?

Why? Because it’s becoming more apparent just how much the quality of our rural life is changing and how little the government seems to care about it.

There’s a new kind of industrial revolution going on in the countryside and it’s increasingly noticeable around the edges of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Humans have always exploited the countryside. Mills developed around natural water power while lead and coal mines along with stone, slate and limestone quarries have been regular features in the Dales for centuries.

Driving around now I see an ever-increasing number of wind turbines. This week I stopped to view the massive solar power station at Gisburn, where 20,000 panels have been installed across three fields. Many more will follow.

Dales solarpanels
Thousands of solar panels at Gisburn

After bemoaning the fact that fracking had been allowed on the North York Moors a couple of months back, permission for fracking has now been granted down the road in Lancashire… despite the fact that the locals and the council didn’t want it to happen.

Further afield huge agricultural businesses are gobbling up small farms, turning millions of acres into featureless prairies or unnatural meat factories, ruining the countryside’s natural balance, destroying wildlife habitats and forever changing communities.

I live in a Dales village where the local primary school was closed a few years back – now we learn that the lovely school at Horton-in-Ribblesdale is seriously under threat. With it could go the life-blood and future of another rural community. Families will move out and the place will be filled with second-homeowners and holiday cottages. (Don’t get me wrong – those people are most welcome, but it is the community balance I worry about.)

Libraries and other local resources, including municipal parks, are also being abandoned by councils while funds for National Parks are being cut.

Yes, we must always look for solutions to problems concerning provision of food and power, but why must it be at the expense of our quality of life and the destruction of the things many of us hold so dear?

That’s ‘progress’ I’m told. Don’t fret youngsters, old dinosaurs like me will soon be extinct… unfortunately so will much of the countryside.

Talking of extinction, as I was heading home from Gisburn the other day I came across a farmer who was driving along a minor road, presumably next to his farm, in one of those golf-buggy-type-things. He pulled to the side of the road, grabbed his gun and fired it skywards. It was a tad disconcerting but something not to be too surprised at out in the countryside. I didn’t stop to find out what he was firing at, but I do hope it wasn’t a rare bird of prey – there have been too many reports of them being killed this year. That’s another sensitive rural subject concerning songbirds, farming and the hunting-shooting-fishing brigade – but enough ranting for one day… enjoy the photos.

Dales photos from this week

Dales countsheep
If you can’t sleep try counting the sheep in this photo – hundreds on the hillside in Ribblesdale
Dales bull
Cows – and a bull – gather at Winskill
Dales watlowes
Watlowes dry valley as the early mist was dispersing
Dales path
Autumn sunshine and path at Langcliffe
Dales stainscartint
Stainforth Scar showing some early autumn tints
Dales ingleborough
Evening light on Ingleborough
Dales attermire
Attermire in the afternoon
Dales trees-ingle
Ingleborough in the distance, seen from Langcliffe
Dales scaleber
Scaleber Force
Dales treesribble
Changing colours by the Ribble
Dales malhamtarn
More hints that autumn is upon us at Malham Tarn
Dales penyghent
I couldn’t go a week without a photo of Penyghent, could I?
Dales duck
A quiet moment on Langcliffe mill pond

Pennine wind farms – at what cost to us?

castle_hill

I’ve yet to be convinced that wind farms are of much use to the majority of us; rather that they mainly benefit those involved in the manufacture of turbines and landowners looking to make a quick and easy profit. Enormous turbines are springing up all around the Yorkshire Dales National Park with little regard to those like me who treasure the views and care for wildlife and the rural way of life. Although I now live in the Dales my childhood was spent in the West Riding and I still travel regularly to Huddersfield to pay homage to Yorkshire’s greatest football team. One of my favourite places in the town, after the John Smith’s Stadium, is Castle Hill and the Jubilee Tower. The 360 degree view from the top of the tower, even with its industrial aspects, is one to behold. For hundreds of years Castle Hill has provided for ordinary folk an escape from the mills and the daily grind. To me and most residents, the surrounding moorland is just as precious and personal as that of the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. The Pennines hills around Huddersfield offer beauty, solitude and drama which can’t be assessed in terms of pound coins. The number of wind farms appearing or planned for the region disturbs me greatly and I hope the local authority sees the deeper value in our countryside when considering wind farm applications.
Pics: above a view from Jubilee Tower; below, one of a crop of 93m turbines towering above grazing cows near Harrogate.

turbine

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