Category: News

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.

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http://frackfreeryedale.org/

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

On Friday 20^th May North Yorkshire County Council is due to determine the planning application by Third Energy to frack at Kirby Misperton.  The meeting will take place at 9.30 am in County Hall, Northallerton and is open to the public. We understand that the meeting is expected to continue on Monday 23^rd May.

The officers’ report to Councillors has been published today and can be viewed on the NYCC website via this link.  The report is 252 pages long, with the conclusion and recommendation in pages 247-252.  Despite over 4,000 objections (and only 32 supporters), the report recommends that the application be approved subject to conditions.

At Ryedale, district councillors voted on 15 March to override their officers’ recommendation and come out against this fracking application.  Important voices are already calling upon the county councillors, who have the final say, to act likewise, defy their officers and reflect the widespread local opposition by rejecting the application.

Anti-fracking campaigners are expected come out in force at County Hall on 20^th May.

In view of the large number of people expected to attend the meeting, special arrangements have been put in place.  The Council has advised that capacity in the main meeting room is likely to be taken up by people who have registered to speak on the application.  Video relays will be provided to various additional meeting rooms in County Hall and an audio relay will be provided to the front of County Hall.  No parking is available on the County Hall campus.  Northallerton train station is across the road from County Hall.

Below, Slingsby Village website keeps you up to date with other recent developments:

• The Environment Agency has granted the environmental permits that Third Energy need to operate at Kirby Misperton. The permits set out the conditions that Third Energy must follow to protect groundwater, surface water and air quality and to ensure the safe storage, management and disposal of wastes.  These permits are separate from the planning application that the County Council are considering.  Both planning permission and environmental permits must be in place before operations can begin.

• Flamingo Land have written to the County Council to express their concern about the fracking application. Their letter states: “Our fear is that the current application is merely the start of a process which will lead to at least 40 local drilling sites within the Ryedale district, then tourism within our area will be negatively affected permanently.  We were informed that the used water would be piped to containers, removed and treated, but now this does not seem to be the case.  Additionally, we now have concern for our beloved, and in many cases critically endangered, animal collection’s welfare…. Over and above our animal collection we now have health concerns for local residents, visiting public and our resort guests.” (Source: York Press 5.5.2016)

• INEOS, another fracking company which holds exploratory licences covering several areas in Ryedale, has announced that they are “firing the starting gun” on their programme. They plan to carry out surveys this summer before lodging planning applications for core drilling later this year.  They will be holding open public exhibition events in the coming weeks and months – no details yet available. An INEOS meeting for Ryedale and York councillors took place in the Milton Rooms in Malton on 11th May.

Watch Slingsby Village website for further developments on this important local issue.

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A defibrillator was installed in December 2015 in the telephone box on the village green. It is a portable unit (designed for people with no medical knowledge) which can administer a measured electrical shock to a heart attack victim in order to re-establish a steady heart rhythm. The VETS scheme is the Village Emergency Telephone System run by local volunteers and is explained below.

If you are in a situation where a defibrillator may be required, you must first dial 999 to get medical help. The ambulance service will, if appropriate, inform you that there is a defibrillator in the telephone box on the village green and give you the access code for it. They will stay on the line if required.

However, the occasion may arise where you are the only person with the patient and therefore cannot go and get the defibrillator. This is where the Village Emergency Telephone System (VETS) comes into play.

Dial 01653 272999 and all 9 volunteers’ telephone lines will ring simultaneously. The first one to pick up the call will then get the necessary information from you about your location, retrieve the defibrillator, come to you and assist.

All the volunteers have been trained and are due to receive additional training within the next few weeks.

PLEASE MAKE A NOTE OF THE VETS NUMBER NOW: 01653 272999

Any questions/queries please contact Fiona Farnell 01653 628285