How ironic that the Gazette (14 June) reported a massive fund-raising effort by Katherine Bray for Ryedale Special Families (RSF).

She ran 200 miles over mountainous Highland terrain in six days to hopefully raise £5,000 towards RSFs new Pickering facility. In the same issue, the North Yorkshire Council ( NYC) political leadership explained why they were refusing a near £1million grant to RSF, which dwarfs Katherine’s sterling efforts.

Yet again, these councillors use the ‘Tory head office Boris Johnson playbook’ to justify their decision. If a lie is repeated often enough, it doesn’t make it true.

Ten Ryedale organisations had been awarded grants totalling £3m for ‘community infrastructure’ projects from an existing pot of money, raised for spending only in Ryedale, in accordance with the existing Ryedale Local Plan policy and after exceptionally careful appraisal by officers.

Every applicant was clearly informed at the outset that final approval would rest with NYC due to rules imposed around Local Government Reform, so they were not ‘wrongly promised cash’.

In simple terms, at that time it was RDC’s decision to make and NYC’s to sanction or refuse. While they chose the latter, it doesn’t alter the fact that RDC had every right to make the decision and did so legitimately, legally and diligently.

Strangely, in a ‘politically expedient, face-saving U-turn’, the money is suddenly being ring-fenced for Ryedale after all.

It will pay for a new school that isn’t even in the planning stage yet and long-avoided routine maintenance to Welburn Hall school.

Meanwhile, many hundreds of hours of voluntary efforts, officer’s time, public money, match funding and vital community facilities are sliding gently down the pan, while the new ‘unitary authority take a holistic view of community infrastructure needs’ and ‘offer help in finding alternative sources of funding’.

Good luck with that.

The lord giveth and NYC Tories taketh away.

Mike Potter Pickering