Category: News

Monday 23 May, 6.55pm, Northallerton.

North Yorkshire County Council’s Planning Committee has approved Third Energy’s application to carry out fracking at a well in Kirby Misperton.

At the end of a two day meeting at County Hall in Northallerton, the committee voted by a majority of 7 to 4 to accept their planning officers’ recommendation that they approve, subject to conditions, the application to test-frack at the KM8 deep well.

This vote came in spite of the overwhelming local opposition to fracking, demonstrated in over 4,000 representations to the Council and a full day of presentations to the committee on Friday, from experts and laypeople opposing the application.

Opponents of the controversial and novel technique believe “it only starts with one well” and that this decision may, in effect, fire the starting gun on fracking across North Yorkshire, and could ultimately lead to the industrialisation of Ryedale’s rural landscape.

In the event, the committee accepted the company’s assurances regarding the safety of the operation and the effectiveness of their control measures.

Whether this is a black day for Ryedale or the dawning of a new age of energy independence remains to be seen.

Photo: Stephen Prest – Potato planting at Castle Farm (12th May 2016)  showing tractors with a bedtiller, destoner and potato planter working in tandem.

After a long, cold and very wet spring suddenly everything changed and we have had some dry and reasonably warm weather which has enabled spring work to proceed at great pace.  Spring corn and sugar beet have been drilled and potato planting is going well.  Let’s hope for a good growing season from now on until harvest as we need a  good crop to help compensate for very low prices.  Wheat is the benchmark crop and it is only worth £102 per tonne at harvest time. (In 2010 wheat reached over £200 per tonne.)

One of the most important jobs farmers have to do at this time of year is put in an application for the Basic Payment Scheme subsidy .  This is a payment from the European Union designed to support farmers throughout Europe.  Sadly without this payment most farmers would be out of business.

In England the Rural Payments Agency is responsible for running the scheme. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own schemes.   The rules are very strict and every farm is closely monitored, often using satellite technology to check fields and crops and to make sure that every claim is verified.

On the conservation side it is lovely to see the migrant birds returning and hear them singing all around us. Swallows are nesting in our barns again and swifts can be seen swooping around over the village doing their amazing acrobatics.   I have four barn owl boxes around the farm and I am pleased that one has barn owls in it and two of the others have stock doves in them.

Wednesday 25 May, 7pm, Merchant Taylors Hall and Merchant Adventurers Hall (above), York

A truly unique event and a chance to explore the Merchant Taylors Hall, not normally open to the public.

York’s two great medieval halls host an unmissable and unique collaborative event between the Companies of the Adventurers and Taylors of York and the Ryedale Festival. This Double Concert features world-renowned artists and celebrates the 600th anniversary of the Merchant Taylors’ Hall as well as providing an opportunity for the Ryedale Festival to launch its 2016 programme to York audiences. Both concerts are performed twice; the audiences will change places at the interval.

In the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall the Heath Quartet evoke the world of War and Peace with Tchaikovsky’s noble and lyrical 1st String Quartet. Its famous slow movement is based on a Ukrainian folksong that famously moved Leo Tolstoy to tears.

In contrast, the Merchant Taylors’ Hall is the setting for an irresistible and varied recital by one of the country’s leading musicians, Catrin Finch, known as ‘The Queen of Harps’, and former Royal Harpist to HRH The Prince of Wales.

Please consider joining us for what promises to be a special evening on Wednesday 25th May 2016 at 7.00pm at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall and the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall.

There is a 7 to 10 minute walk between venues.

Tickets for this concert are £30.

To book please contact the Festival Box Office on 01751 475777 (Mon-Wed 9.30 – 2.00) or by email [email protected]

To see more details of the concerts at the main Festival in July, please visit the Ryedale Festival website.

The Merchant Adventurers’ Hall is of major national importance and is a grade 1 listed building and scheduled ancient monument. It was built between 1357 and 1361, before most of the craft or trade guild halls in Britain, making it one of the largest buildings of its kind and date in Britain. It is very unusual to be able to see in one building the three rooms serving the three functions of a medieval guild; business and social in the Great Hall, charitable in the Undercroft and religious in the Chapel.

The Company Hall at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall has recently been dated using tree ring technology and celebrates its 600th Anniversary in 2015.  The main timbers were felled in forests to the North of York between 1410-1413 and the Hall was completed in 1415 / 1416.  Although mainly used as a meeting place for the Company to carry out its business, the Hall has in the past also been used as a school and theatre.  It is now used to host a variety of events including weddings, dinners and conferences.

A big question for a little village website, you might think.

The Government claims to give you a choice. You want to have proper information to make that choice. Both sides try to bombard you with so-called facts and you sometimes end up feeling none the wiser. Occasionally one side or the other comes out with something truly outrageous.

But we’re not talking about the EU referendum. We are talking about the fracking debate, the result of which could have an even greater and more visible effect on our communities here than whether we are IN or OUT.

The first major decision will be taken by North Yorkshire County Council at its meeting on Friday and ending Monday! (see Slingsby Village website’s earlier post on this for more details). In spite of the overwhelming local objections to Third Energy’s fracking application at Kirby Misperton, officers have recommended that the Council should approve it, and the Government will be right behind them. If you are not already planning to go to Northallerton to comment, query or protest, you may be too late to influence that decision.

But whatever happens in the coming days, whether it be firing the starting gun on fracking or nipping the industrialisation of Ryedale in the bud, it will be just the start of a process.

The debate will continue and you will want to know more.

The Slingsby Village website has been heard to refer to itself as an independent news-oriented website. We steer clear of politics, on the whole. So if we were to give you a link to Frack Free Ryedale’s website, we would need to do the same for Third Energy (see further below)

We prefer, therefore, to point you to an independent website run by journalists specialising in the oil and gas field: https://drillordrop.com/

We hope you find it will be worth a moment of your time.

_____________________________________________

http://frackfreeryedale.org/

https://www.third-energy.com/