... your village ... your voice ...

LoPRA
JOIN US NOW -BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!
 

Click here to join LoPRA

Click here to join LoPRA

Photographs by Peter Scott-Smith

LoPRA membership costs just £5 per person annually.
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Concessional £1
See Form for details

Half price membership for remaining part of year,
 if joining after 1st May.
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YOUR SUPPORT IS VITAL
  TO HELP US ...

1. Stop Green Field Land Grab
   All 'brown field' building sites in Long Preston are now exhausted (41 new houses have been commercially built over the past two years increasing the total number of village households to 305 - growth of 15.5% ) and property developers are greedily eyeing our green fields.

2. Fight to Retain the Village Building Envelope.
   A tiny minority of local landowners wish to maximise the value of their land holdings and co-operate with developers' plans. Together they have lobbied the Yorkshire Dales National Park Planning Authority to roll back the building 'envelop' that currently protects these green fields. Fortunately, this was denied by the Yorkshire Dales National Park planning committee earlier this year - and again on appeal to an inspector appointed by the Countryside Agency. But a new YDNP local plan will take effect from 2006 and, without question, developers and landowners will next year redouble their efforts to roll back the building 'envelope'.

3. Lobby: A65 Noise and Speed
   Our village is sundered by the A65 - one of the busiest non-motorway routes  in the United Kingdom.  The upkeep of the road - and in particular the adjoining footway - has been shamefully neglected in Long Preston, initially by the Highways Agency. Gargrave and Hellifield have had millions of pounds spent on resurfacing and  noise reduction measures. LoPRA will lobby relentlessly for similar work to be carried out on the section of the A65 running through our village.

4. Lobby: A65 Traffic Volumes
   The A65 running between Settle and Long Preston carries significantly higher traffic volumes than other villages between Settle and Skipton, as up to 15% of vehicles divert via the A682 Gisburn road after (or before) passing through Long Preston. Yet this significant fact has been consistently overlooked by the appropriate road authorities. LoPRA will lobby for an official survey of traffic passing through the village as a prelude to further action.

5. Village Facilities
   Encourage and support our splendid voluntarily-funded and managed village facilities - the Playing Fields and Village Hall committees; the Maypole Day and Children's Day events; the Water Trust; St Mary's and the Methodist Churches; the Relief in Need Fund; and other worthwhile one-off causes.

6. Hartley Trust
   We also hope to foster a constructive and mutually beneficial relationship with the Trust which does valuable work in funding further education for former pupils of the village school. The Trust also owns the land and buildings that house our village school.

7. Affordable Housing
   It is essential that properly conducted research is undertaken to ascertain whether a genuine need for affordable housing exists within the village and (if it does) to ensure that such accommodation is allocated on a priority basis to present Long Preston residents and their families.

8. Village Environment
   Our precious Dales environment must be protected and nurtured at all costs. Developers are prone to lop trees that impede their progress and seek permission after the event. And as a sad sign of the times, vandalism is on the increase in Long Preston. Sadder still, the North Yorkshire Constabulary and the Transport Police appear to need constant chivvying to take action. There are a host of other environmental threats too numerous and - frequently changing - to list here.

9. Support Our Parish Council
   We are fortunate in Long Preston in having an effective, conscientious and hard-working Parish Council. However, there are statutory limitations as to what the PC can or cannot do: for example, lobby publicly for or against a cause. LoPRA is not similarly bound by statute and aims to work in close co-operation with the PC on all matters of village interest.

as Adobe PDF

as MS-Word

as JPEG

Clicking on one of the link in the left hand box will download a copy of the LoPRA membership form; either in Adobe PDF format, Microsoft Word Format, or as a JPEG.

Please print-out and mail a completed form with cash or cheque to the address shown at the bottom - or if more convenient, just hand (with your payment) to any LoPRA committee member.

For the PDF form you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader loaded on your
 computer to open this file.   It can be downloaded free from ......

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