New police commissioner to review controversial mobile speed cameras

North Yorkshire’s new Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner has announced a review of the county’s controversial and unique mobile speed camera van system.

Speaking yesterday to the media outside the police force’s headquarters in Northallerton, Conservative Philip Allott outlined his priorities ahead of taking up office.

Mr Allott, from Knaresborough, was elected to the role, which is paid a £74,400 salary, last week with a majority of 30,295 votes on first and second preferences.

Signalling a determination to take his oversight of both emergency services in a different direction to that of his fellow Tory predecessor Julia Mulligan, Mr Allott said there were “big concerns” over camera vans, which have multiplied since they were first introduced in 2011.

Despite the force’s insistence the vans are deployed at accident black spots, widespread concerns have persisted for a decade that they are being sited at places to maximise the revenue they generate rather than improve safety.

Mr Allott said:

“People say the camera vans are in the wrong locations. People say their village doesn’t get a camera van. People say there are other solutions.”

He declined to elaborate on the concerns, but added:

“There will be a rethink in terms of how that is handled and that will be something that involves a consultation process.”

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County lines the top priority

In another apparent change in direction, he said he wanted to strengthen ties with councils and other bodies. He said the commissioner’s office could not work in isolation to tackle issues such as county lines drug dealers, which he ranked as his leading priority, or antisocial behaviour.

The commissioner said he would seek to forge closer partnerships with schools to identify children who act as couriers and with social services to identify vulnerable people whose homes may be used as county lines bases.

He said there were now 47 active county lines networks operating in the county, representing a huge increase on 14 months ago when Ms Mulligan revealed there were 11 drug supply lines from urban areas such as Cleveland, West Yorkshire, Liverpool and Manchester affecting North Yorkshire.

Mr Allott said:

“It is a community issue. Unfortunately during the pandemic recreational drugs has seen an increase in some activity. That’s something we need to deal with.”

The commissioner said while prosecuting county lines dealers would be a priority, he stressed treating the victims of drugs would be a focus for him.

He added:

“The victims are often the drug takers themselves who often end up in a downward spiral.”

He also pledged to put the needs of victims and vulnerable people above others, saying talks were under way about improving the connections between North Yorkshire and York’s CCTV coverage. He said actions to improve safety for women, both on the street and domestically, would be pursued.

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Rural crime response needs beefing up

However, the first of an extensive list of priorities that Mr Allott outlined was work to improve responses to rural crimes, such as hare coursing, thefts from farms, by strengthening the Rural Taskforce, with more officers.

During campaigning, a number of candidates highlighted how the Rural Taskforce was currently incapable of properly covering England’s largest county because it included only a handful of officers based in York.

He said the county’s size and rurality could be a key factor in many issues that both the police and fire service faced.

To respond to this, Mr Allott said he would examine increasing the number of multi-service officers who act as on-call firefighters, PCSOs and first responders in rural locations.

He said a trial of multi-service officers in Craven had proved to be “a great success”.

Mr Allott said:

“That is almost a modern day version of the village constable. That means somebody’s within that community and living within five minutes of the fire station.

“Because there’s funding there to fund that as a full-time job, it gives somebody an opportunity to be a firefighter who wouldn’t otherwise be able to do it.”

Newer fire engines needed

Nevertheless he said as the county’s fire service, which has been described as among the worst funded brigades in the country, had an “elderly fleet of vehicles” and a lack of equipment for staff, he would hold “honest discussions” with the government.

He said:

“We need to give the fire service the tools so they can do the job and do it well. We have to put together a concrete case as to why the government’s funding formula discriminates against us.

“We have got the biggest county in England with massive borders and lot of parks and green space between residential areas.”

New Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner pledges to be ‘broad church’

Philip Allott has pledged to be “a broad church” and tackle a wide range of concerns after being elected Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire.

With a turnout that was the highest since the post of police and crime commissioner was created in 2012, the Conservative candidate took 47% of the first preference votes – falling short of the requisite 50% – but secured re-election on second preference votes.

After several recounts it was announced he had secured a total of 83,737 first and second preference votes, over 30,000 more than his nearest rival Labour’s Alison Hume.

The first round of voting had seen Liberal Democrat James Barker with 19,773 votes and Independent candidate Keith Tordoff with 22,308 votes eliminated.

As the result over who would have oversight of the police and fire services in the county was announced in the sports hall at Selby College, Mr Allott, who runs a public relations and marketing agency, said he would take on the issues that his rival candidates had raised while campaigning.

He said:

“We live in the best county in England and I hope to make it an even better county.”

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With the exception of the Harrogate district, the result in each of the North Yorkshire districts was the same with Ms Hume coming second in each of the first counts, Independent candidate and Pateley Bridge sweet shop entrepreneur Keith Tordoff has received the third most votes in each area. Harrogate saw Mr Barker come second.

Returning officer Janet Waggott has said there had been 160,025 votes verified for the North Yorkshire and York area, meaning 25.47% of the electorate, higher than the 22% five years ago and almost double that of 2012.

The rural district of Craven, which includes part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, saw 29.6% of the electorate turn out, while the similarly rural district of Richmondshire, on the other side of the park saw just 23.8% of the electorate vote.

The areas with the largest urban populations, York, Harrogate and Scarborough, saw turnouts of 24.1%, 27.4% and 22% respectively.

Ms Hume, a York-based lecturer and disability campaigner, said she was proud at having run a positive campaign. She welcomed Mr Allott’s pledge to tackle the issues she had raised, and said she looked forward to seeing action over the “epidemic of violence against women and girls”.

Mr Barker, a City of York councillor with 24 years of military service, said:

“I am pleased with the amount of votes I got, which was 6,000 more than the previous Liberal Democrat candidate for this role. I came here with two aims. Not to lose the deposit and to increase the count and we have achieved this.”

After the first count, Mr Tordoff said:

“I am obviously disappointed because I came to win, but to come third is pleasing and over 22,000 people in North Yorkshire voted for me as first preference. It was always going to be a Herculean task against the main political parties.”

North Yorkshire crime candidates: Conservative and Labour

Voters head to the polls tomorrow to elect a new police, fire and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire.

As candidates finalise campaigning ahead of the poll, they have spoken of what they view as the biggest tasks facing Conservative Julia Mulligan’s successor to ensure the best policing service possible is delivered.

Today, we feature Philip Allott, Conservative candidate, and Labour’s Alison Hume.

You can read about the Liberal Democrat and Independent candidates here.

Philip Allott, Conservative

A toughened approach to crack down on county lines drug dealing would be the top of marketing specialist Philip Allott’s agenda if he is named the new commissioner.

The former pupil at King James’ School in Knaresborough said despite the best endeavours of North Yorkshire Police and the regional crime unit, county lines dealers “are obviously still very active in North Yorkshire”.

Dismissing a suggestion that the issue was persisting due to a lack of resources to tackle it, he said government funding was being directed to the regional crime unit.

He said:

“The thing I am interested in is making the drug dealers’ lives a misery. In many cases there is intelligence and we can use that intelligence to stop vehicles on suspicion, particularly cross-border.”

Mr Allott said he would push for further work to enable teachers to spot pupils who are part of county lines drug dealing, help housing associations to identify cuckooing and action to spot children carrying drugs on railways.

He said: 

“The police on their own are not going to solve this and I see my role as working with different agencies, getting them all on board and actually communicating with each other, sharing intelligence and working for the greater good.”

Mr Allott said as commissioner he would also foster closer working with other agencies, launching a “complete reset” between the councils and the commissioner’s office.

He said: 

“We should be working for the greater good. I see the councillors from each of the different authorities as the eyes and ears of the commissioner. I see it as a partnership approach and that’s perhaps a very different way of looking at things.”

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Alison Hume, Labour

Clamping down on serious crime, rural crime and antisocial behaviour would be among York-based lecturer and TV writer Alison Hume’s top priorities.

But the most important issue for her would be tackling violence against women and girls, using some of the commissioner’s £5m pot for victims to introduce a clear strategy working across all agencies and attract further funding to get to grips with what she describes as “a national emergency”.

She said: 

“If this was happening to men, dare I say it would have been dealt with.”

Ms Hume said the greatest challenge for the incoming commissioner would be to connect with the public. 

She said: 

“You have to be the voice of the people and for the last nine years we’ve had a commissioner who hasn’t been visible and approachable.”

Ms Hume added tackling county lines was “clearly number one on the list” of challenges for North Yorkshire Police. 

She said: 

“Crime gangs are ripping our families and communities apart. support the creation of a specialist enforcement unit to track criminals on roads and railways and support drug diversion schemes to reduce harm and demand.

“The people who get caught up in county lines are not criminals, they are victims, we need to build safe services to prevent them going into a life of crime. North Yorkshire does not get a fair share of the pie and I will be fighting at a national level for better funding.”

She said she would establish a rural crime taskforce in every district, with officers trained in dealing with offences ranging from domestic abuse to wildlife crime.

She added: 

“I think the public would be shocked to know the rural crime taskforce is just a handful of officers and they have to cover the whole of North Yorkshire.”

North Yorkshire crime candidates: Independent and Liberal Democrat

North Yorkshire residents are set to vote this week for the area’s first new police, fire and crime commissioner since 2012.

As candidates continue campaigning ahead of Thursday’s poll, they have spoken of what they view as the biggest tasks facing Conservative Julia Mulligan’s successor to ensure the best policing service possible is delivered.

Today, we feature Keith Tordoff, Independent candidate, and James Barker, Liberal Democrat candidate.

Keith Tordoff, Independent

The residents of North Yorkshire deserve both honesty from their commissioner and someone who will fight for a fair share of government funding, former police officer and bank fraud investigator Keith Tordoff says.

He says resources for both the police and fire services are spread too thinly across the county and highlighted that currently 13 road traffic patrols are expected to police more than 6,000 miles of roads.

Mr Tordoff said:

“A lot of areas will not be being covered by the police. We have to be honest about it.”

He said upon being elected as commissioner, he would use his business and community experience to immediately hold a series of meetings with a range of bodies and the public to examine how the county could be made a safer place to live, work or visit.

When asked if he viewed North Yorkshire as a safe place, he said:

“I think a lot of people don’t feel safe because they hear about county lines drugs coming across the borders into North Yorkshire.

“Up until restrictions were brought in last year rural crime had vastly increased, which affects large swathes of North Yorkshire with its isolated communities and properties. Those people certainly don’t feel safe and to some degree feel let down because the rural taskforce is not sufficient to cover the vast area.”

He said as an Independent commissioner, he would be free to work with anybody and would not have to toe any political party’s line.

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James Barker, Liberal Democrat

Dispensing with the police, fire and crime commissioner and handing oversight of the services to councils would free up £1m annually to fund vital equipment and facilities, says former RAF officer James Barker.

He said the incoming commissioner’s greatest challenge would be in trying to deliver a service that has had “massive underinvestment over the years, but the challenges have forever been increasing”.

The Liberal Democrat York councillor said:

“There’s a tipping balance and I think it’s not in favour of the police or fire service at the moment.

“I would be looking to try to bring that balance back into kilter through a mixture of working smarter, not harder, working more collaboratively and with more agencies, how we balance the books.”

While he said he would prioritise cutting call answering times on the police non-emergency phone number, he would look to increase crime prevention action by working with agencies such as councils to tackle the causes of crime.

He said:

“Let’s stop fighting these fires individually and stop and build a fire service and work hand in hand rather have little pockets of people trying to do the best they can with these ever dwindling resources.

“We don’t get a fair crack of the whip being up north. I want to see a more developed system of Rural Watch. It’s a fantastic county we live in, but it’s awfully big and awfully rural and we can’t be everywhere all the time. I think sometimes it’s beholden on the landowner to be a little more proactive within certain bounds clearly in terms of reporting crime.

“Once we can identify a pattern we can have targeted intelligence to tackle the crime could you can spot trends and patterns and you can send resources.”

Tomorrow we will feature the Labour and Conservative candidates for North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.

Yorkshire Dales see big increase in holiday accommodation plans

North Yorkshire’s national parks are seeing a boom in plans to create tourist accommodation as demand for holidays and staycations increases.

National park bosses said dozens of planning applications have been lodged with the North York Moors and Yorkshire Dales authorities in recent weeks.

It follows concerns about the viability of foreign holidays and a massive increase in media awareness of the British landscape.

Chris France, director of planning for the moors authority, said while development proposals in general rose by 20 per cent last year, the first month of this year had seen an even sharper increase.

He said:

“Last year it was down to small-scale household applications as people were saving money and weren’t travelling, but this year it’s larger proposals as well and in particular a really significant increase from the hospitality and tourism accommodation sector.

“We are seeing a lot of small-scale works on farms, expansion of existing camping and caravanning sites, lots of glamping and holiday lodges. There’s been a move towards self-contained holiday accommodation where people don’t have to share amenity blocks.”

While the Dales has also seen numerous plans to make barns and fields more profitable, the latest accommodation plan submitted is for the conversion of Arkengarthdale’s former school, which its new owners hope to run guided walking holidays from.

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Upper Dales councillor Yvonne Peacock said she welcomed plans to create holiday cottages, but proposals which ended up as second homes were unhelpful for the communities as they were empty for much of the year.

She said:

“The important thing for the Dales is to get the balance right. We do need tourists, but don’t want the house prices to go so high that local people can’t afford to buy them.

“I wouldn’t like to see the Dales overrun with tourists like places such as the Lake District.”

Communities, particularly those in areas with high volumes of tourists, have started to react to the wave of proposals, warning the park authorities of the consequences of mass tourism.

However, planning bosses say while their policies recognise the importance of tourism for local economies, the national parks have the capacity to attract more people to enjoy their special qualities.

Mr France highlighted how the Moors national park had adopted policies last July that would protect against inappropriate tourism developments.

Rural people being denied ‘fundamental human right’ to buses

Rural residents are being deprived of their “fundamental human right” of public transport, a meeting has heard.

Resident Bill Bracknell told North Yorkshire County Council‘s transport, economy and environment scrutiny committee that many rural people had little option other than to use cars because of a lack of buses.

Responding to a report on local rural transport, Mr Bracknell said there were many things the council could do to improve buses but it did not recognise their essential value to country life.

He said:

“Rural transport is a basic human right and a social equity issue. Community transport and demand responsive transport can’t substitute for clear, timetabled bus services with the capacity to be accessible to all and to cope with volatile demand.

“There is still a lack of direction in how England’s largest county can help its communities and visitors to travel with confidence, equality and a clean environmental conscience.

“I still think it’s a fundamental human right to have substantial and sustainable transport in our rural areas.”

In response, officers told the meeting the council had provided financial support to 85 local bus services with 18 operators last year.

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Officers said as part of a drive to provide innovative solutions, a new digital demand responsive service would be launched in the summer in Ripon area for an anticipated 12 month trial period.

Councillors heard transport would be shared with other services and vehicles would vary their routes based on demand rather than using a fixed route or timetable.

Alongside this, members were told the council supported 15 voluntary car schemes as well as six dial-a-ride schemes run by voluntary organisations, which during 2019/20 saw a combined 103,000 journeys made.

Nevertheless, officers said it remained unclear how the new national bus strategy would affect bus service provision in North Yorkshire, where demand continued to outstrip the available funding for public transport, leaving some communities feeling left out.

Pandemic sparks fresh concerns over Yorkshire Dales second homes

The impact of the pandemic has led to fresh calls for action on people buying second homes in the Yorkshire Dales.

A Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority meeting heard there was increasingly clear evidence that more people were buying properties as an investment rather than as somewhere to live and work.

Members were told 3,100 of the national park’s 12,000 properties were now holiday lets and second homes, and the number was rising.

The pandemic had accelerated the trend for rural relocations among wealthy and retired people, the meeting heard.

The concerns come three years after the park authority saw its proposal to bolster communities by imposing a five-fold increase in council tax on second home owners in the national park rejected.

Former Friends of the Dales chairman and park member Mark Corner told the meeting the pandemic had been “a game-changer to how society will be acting in future”.

He questioned whether the authority needed to reassess its strategies, such as promoting the area as somewhere for families to live and work.

He said:

“I see evidence of an increased interest in second homes. People wanting to find a safe space as a second home location.

“There’s been this huge awakening in closeness to nature, there’s been a recognition that remote working is feasible and is a way forward, there’s been pretty much devastation of our tourism economy.”

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Third generation farmer Allen Kirkbride said the village of Askrigg in Wensleydale was seeing a deluge of properties becoming second homes and holiday cottages.

He said:

“People are buying them as an investment and the vast majority are going to holiday lets. We are now starting to be over-run. It’s just pushing the prices up and up.

“In some way we have got to suppress this a little bit. It wasn’t a major problem five years ago, but it certainly is a major problem now.”

Veteran authority member Robert Heseltine added the authority was “as guilty as anyone in promoting Yorkshire Dales as a destination”.

Joining calls for fresh action, he said:

“We can only influence things if we have a leadership role.”

The authority’s chief executive, David Butterworth, warned members of the lack of support from surrounding councils the last time they tried to raise the second homes issue and said the market determined who bought properties for second homes.

He said:

“It looks in the early stages that there might be some acceleration in that. There is no support for any restraint on second homes from the county councils, district councils and I would suggest the local community.

“When the national park authority tried to show some leadership over this matter we got slapped down in an extraordinary manner by those bodies concerned. There wasn’t even support about discussing the matter with central government, which was all we wanted to do.”

 

Withering attack on North Yorkshire Police Commissioner’s appointment

A former head of the North Yorkshire Police Federation has launched a withering attack on the appointment of the police commissioner’s chief officer, saying it would take the force “back to the dark days”.

Mike Stubbs, who was chair of North Yorkshire Police Federation from 2014 to 2017, questioned commissioner Julia Mulligan’s decision to hand the force’s former solicitor Simon Dennis the £90,000-a-year job as the commissioner’s chief executive and monitoring officer.

His comments come just weeks after Mrs Mulligan told the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel that Mr Dennis had been the outstanding candidate to apply for the role “by some way”.

The panel approved Mrs Mulligan’s appointment after Mr Dennis told them he had extensive experience of challenging senior figures.

Mr Stubbs said:

“It riled me that he tried to present himself as a hero of challenging senior officers. He certainly didn’t do that when he was the force solicitor.
“North Yorkshire is known by the Federation’s solicitors as one of the worst for trying to deal with legal claims against. They are just utterly obstructive and that was a lot to do with the attitude developed under Simon Dennis.”

Mr Stubbs claimed while Mr Dennis had been the force’s solicitor he had been “a company man”, serving as an enthusiastic advocate of the force’s “abysmal failure to properly administer the 2009 Special Priority Payments scheme”. He added:

“Simon Dennis played a key role in trying to defend the force’s completely indefensible position. It took Judicial Review proceedings by North Yorkshire Police Federation in 2010 to win back over £72,000 in payments for more than 50 officers.”

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Giving an example of his willingness to tackle senior officers, Mr Dennis told the panel he had been closely involved with the departure of Cleveland Police’s chief constable Mike Veale. Mr Stubbs said the chief constable’s situation had been untenable before Mr Dennis acted, and added Mr Dennis had left it to the North Yorkshire Police Authority to oversee the departure of chief constable Grahame Maxwell, who kept his job after admitting gross misconduct. He said:

“I regard Mr Dennis’ appointment as a retrograde step, taking the organisation back to the dark days of Grahame Maxwell and everything the force went through at that time and the approach that it took to errors and issues that it made.”

The Office of the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire was presented with Mr Stubbs’ claims, but did not respond to them directly.

A spokesman for the commissioner’s office said:

“Simon Dennis was selected as the preferred candidate for the position of chief executive and monitoring officer of the Office of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner following an open and transparent recruitment process, which included a partnership stakeholder panel and an independent member on the final interview panel.”

Chairman of the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Panel, Councillor Carl Les declined to comment.

Rural roadworks in North Yorkshire suffer £13m axe

Concerns have been raised for North Yorkshire’s rural economy after £13 million of planned roadworks were dropped due to government funding cuts.

North Yorkshire County Council confirmed “a long list” of road repair schemes and projects to prevent highways from deteriorating across its 9,200km road network has been postponed.

It blamed this on receiving less government funding than expected when it set this year’s roadworks programme.

The cuts come as £1 million is being spent on active travel plans in Harrogate, including new cycle lanes and initiatives to encourage walking.

Meanwhile, £7.9 million has been secured from government for the town’s Station Gateway project, which could include the pedestrianisation of James Street and a single lane on Station Parade.

Kex Gill goes ahead

Government spending on major road schemes remains intact, meaning the £500 million on creating a final stretch of dual carriageway on the A66 between the M6 and Scotch Corner and £56 million on re-routing the A59 around a landslip-prone area at Kex Gill will go ahead.

But some smaller road maintenance projects will be shelved.

Cllr Gareth Dadd, the authority’s finance boss and deputy leader, said this would hit rural businesses and the impact of the cuts would disproportionately impact on North Yorkshire’s economy.

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He said:

“The highway network is a the most important asset in rural area like North Yorkshire in terms of supporting the economy. The effect on the economy of North Yorkshire with a highways cut is far more severe than in a more urban city centre.

“It’s just a bit of a rural disconnect. With the best will in the world, highways have got to be, in terms of the economy, our biggest priority. We can’t just let them go into disrepair.

“I don’t believe this is signalling a further wave of austerity, as there is money being put into other priorities, such as meeting the government’s carbon cutting focus, but it’s also important that rural needs continue to be met. If we can bring home devolution in the quickest possible time, then local priorities such as highways can be addressed.”

Hopeful of attracting more funds

Cllr Dadd said the authority had battled for decades to try and maintain roads, with some success compared to other parts of the country.

He added the council’s determination to maintain roads was displayed by the amount of resources it spent on winter maintenance.

He said:

“We grit and treat more than anywhere else in the country in percentage and quantum terms. That’s a great achievement given austerity.”

The council’s highways boss Cllr Don Mackenzie said he remained hopeful the council would attract additional funding for highways repairs later this year.

He said the authority consistently tried to reduce future repair bills by operating a policy of good maintenance. He said:

“If you maintain roads well now you reduce repair bills in the future. That’s the position we try to keep ourselves in.”

In response, Thirsk and Malton Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake said Cllr Dadd had raised “a very good point”, which he would raise with his neighbouring constituency MP and Chancellor, Rishi Sunak.

Banks urged to collaborate in North Yorkshire to create one-stop shops

Banks are being urged to consider collaborating in North Yorkshire to create one-stop shops for their services on high streets.

The closure of banks has been keenly felt in the Harrogate district recently.

The Halifax closed in Knaresborough this month, leaving a town with a population of 15,000 without a bank.

This prompted Harrogate Borough Council to conduct a survey on what facilities Knaresborough people would like to see in the town.

Between 2015 and the end of this year a projected 340 bank and building society branches will have closed across Yorkshire, leaving 386 branches.

HSBC recently announced it would shut its branches in Northallerton and Richmond.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s Richmondshire constituency committee heard a scarcity of banks was proving particularly challenging in rural areas, where people suffer with poor broadband and mobile coverage, and there are higher populations of older customers.

One resident, Georgie Sale, told the meeting the branch closures displayed “a lack of understanding in how rural communities work”.

She said as a result of the closures she had been left feeling “terribly vulnerable” while queuing for 30 minutes to pay in the proceeds from a village hall fundraiser at her local post office, which is now located at the back of WH Smiths.

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Councillors said customers wanting to use banking services faced horrendous queues in post offices as their staff had been overwhelmed since the banks closed.

The meeting heard how access to bank services for numerous communities was reliant on just one firm continuing to operate.

A council spokesman told the meeting although the council recognised the issues being highlighted and would continue to raise concerns, neither the authority nor the government had any power to stop bank closures.

Rural areas losing out

Following an inquiry into the issue by the authority’s corporate and partnerships scrutiny committee inquiry in 2019, the council carried out a review of sites where cash machines could be located.

However, Liberal Democrat councillor Bryn Griffiths said the issue was far wider than just cash machines and said places where people could deal with someone person to person, particularly for complex transactions, were needed.

He said:

“Not everybody wants to use or trusts IT. I think we should be encouraging banks to get together and knock their heads together and perhaps join up and provide some sort of banking services facility. I do feel we are losing out in the rural areas significantly.

“What we should be doing is encouraging banks to talk and work together to provide services to rural communities. It is clear they are just upping shop and walking away. It is not good enough.”

The meeting was told one-stop shop banks, offering not only personal banking services and loans, but also investment advice, investment vehicles and insurance policies, were common in other countries, such as Sweden, and the meeting heard calls for the county’s MPs to promote the concept to banks.

Conservative Upper Dales councillor Yvonne Peacock said local solutions were needed as every community was different. She added: “That is probably the only way forward. We can’t tell these big banks what to do unfortunately, that is their businesses.”