FEAR may be preventing supporters of a path on the old railway line between Bolton Abbey and Addingham coming forward to help turn the idea into a reality, a campaigner has claimed.

Andrew Scull has been at the forefront of the local drive to create the cycle, foot and bridle path and he feels that the recent consultation exercise shows that there is strong support in the village for it.

But Mr Scull thinks people are put off from displaying their backing by the behaviour of a minority of the opposition group.

Mr Scull was on the Wharfe-dale Trail Forum which carried out and arranged the funding for the consultation exercise and has been criticism because of his role. He was reported to the Standards Board for England accused of misbehaviour as a parish councillor - an accusation the board rejected.

Mr Scull has tried to keep his role as a parish councillor and his involvement in the Sustrans project separate.

But it is the harassment he has been subjected to which has caused the most difficulty for him.

He said: "I have been subjected to an organised campaign of personal harassment for the past year - most of it carried out anonymously.

"I have had hate mail - people have been ringing up people who employed me 20 years ago and someone has even rung up my Dad posing as someone else.

"A lot of people who would support it are a little shy because they don't want to be harassed themselves."

Mr Scull said it was only a small minority of opponents who were responsible for harassment.

He said it was now up to other supporters to get on board as members of a new steering group to take the project forward.

The group will have no support from Addingham Parish Council which has resolved to ignore the matter until landowners have been persuaded to support it.

And Bradford Council seems to have washed its hands of the project, after providing £4,000 worth of Council Tax payers' money for the consultation.

A council spokesperson said: "We have noted the consultation report but we have no plans to take any further action.

"If we receive any plans or applications for the trail in the future then we will deal with them through the usual planning process."

Mr Scull said that he would help with the setting up of the steering group if people contacted him through the Wharfedale Trail website.

He said: "The bottom line is that the consultation has shown that there is a great deal of support for this.

"It is up to the people who support it to come forward and drive it forward."

He said unless that happened the majority would lose out, adding: "My role from here would be to facilitate people who are taking it forward."

3:49pm Friday 9th May 2008

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