IT'S all very well my lambasting the unelected bureaucrats of Brussels for issuing dotty directives at a faster rate than Jeremy Paxman firing questions on University Challenge; but the disease may have progressed closer to home, spreading through Ryedale House itself, if my reports on the car parking issues are anything to go by.

I understand that the officials of Ryedale District Council have prepared a report on car parking charges in the district, which has been initially for the eyes of the 'Best Value Inspector'. I am told this was a necessary first step before being perused by the district councillors.

Is it too much to hope that that the recommendation will be to take a sharp axe to car parking charges? Perhaps ...

You see, for Ryedale District Council, car parking in its market towns and fees form a sizeable part of their income.

Shoppers and visitors appear to be voting with their feet to desert town centre shopping in favour of the big complexes where parking is free.

Ryedale Business Action Group, amongst many other local interests, have complained bitterly, proposing that charges be lifted to allow town centre shops to compete with their larger out-of-town rivals.

Adjacent local authorities, such as Hambleton, make no charge and last evening I was talking to fellow cattle market operators at Thirsk and Northallerton where their High Street activity is buzzing.

Current Ryedale regulations restrict car parking in the centre of Malton to two hours for a charge of 60p.

Any increase, from the town centre point of view, would make no sense at all unless they want to close our businesses and would be a pretty cynical response to the business community's views.

Those earning a living in rural Ryedale have taken a lot of knocks recently, including the soaring price of petrol and a 90pc drop in farming incomes.

Many of us cannot use the public transport system as we are too remote and our dependency upon car travel forces us to make a decision as to where to go for weekly shopping.

It is not so much the money but the inconvenience, the principle and the threat of enforcement that will put people off and it is so unnecessary when other councils exist perfectly well promoting business and community activity within their own regions. It would be nice to have a full explanation from somebody.

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The long awaited 16-volume report from the £27 m BSE Inquiry has now been published and I wouldn't advise anyone other than the seriously bored to try and read it.

From the synopses in most of the newspapers, the Phillips Report does not breath fire and brimstone on those who have played a part in this very sad tragedy but rather seems to accept that most people acted in a reasonable, if misguided, manner without criminal intent and according to information at the time.

There is criticism of the feed industry, intensive farming methods, the Government and MAFF, but this is levelled with the wonderful benefit of hindsight that was not available when the events took place.

We should understand that recycling animal waste has been going on over the world for the last hundred years or so and perhaps it was not unreasonable to assume there was little danger in continuing. The main lesson to be learned must be to prevent anything similar happening again but we should temper our reaction with a certain amount of reasonableness to ensure agriculture as an industry survives to feed the nation; and I fear that at present farmers are at risk of becoming a dying breed.

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With the over-zealous enforcement of regulations in this country, there is no doubt that our meat is the safest in the world and it is interesting that Professor Harriet Kimbell, the consumer representative on the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, told her children not to eat French beef when on holiday this summer. Nevertheless, the questions have not been answered regarding the Daily Express-contrived importation of continental beef which was over 30 months of age but with forged documents; and upon which I reported last week.

The Food Standards Agency has stressed there is no evidence of illegal beef entering the UK, but there can be no clearer proof than that submitted by the Express.

The situation is further complicated because the UK can import OTMS beef from 14 countries which have been declared free from BSE and these include the USA, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mauritius, Argentina and Poland. The situation is really a nonsense and has to be resolved for the protection of consumers and farmers alike.

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Interesting bullet points this week include:

My Sinnington corespondent was listening to Robin Page on Radio 4's version of Question Time which included the Labour ex-sports minister, Tony Banks, on the panel. Mr Banks' response to the discussion on the farming crisis was to point out that our industry already got £5 billion of subsidy and that it was about time we showed some gratitude! I wonder how appreciative Mr Banks would be if we voted to cut his salary by 90pc this year.

The consequences of our disastrous pig market over the last two years are now starting to appear. The latest figures on imported pork are up by almost 30pc in the first seven months of this year, compared to a decline of 15pc in our exports.

The second advance of the 2000 Annual Ewe Premium will be made shortly, at the rate of £3.32 per eligible ewe, which is meant to equate to 30pc of the anticipated full value of the premium this year.

In keeping with the general view that this season's lamb crop was down, numbers slaughtered so far this season have been around 2pc less than last year. Prices may be disappointing, but we ought to remember they are around 10p/kilo better than 12 months ago.

A significant indication of our modern society's change of values is the revelation that the sales of medicines to pets and companion animals now exceeds the amount spent on medicines for food animals: 52pc of all veterinary medicine goes into our pets.

The Green Party is claiming that 70pc of world agricultural trade is now in the hands of just four multinational corporations. Even if this were only half true it would be disturbing.

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The market this week has been pretty good, with pigs especially benefitting from the improvement in spot prices. At this level, any pig producer selling deadweight should be diverting some of his production into the live market to take advantage of the situation.

We had just over 300 pigs on the two days and they averaged 84p/kilo. The best price on Monday was for a pen of bacon pigs at 88.5p/kilo from Brian Barnes; and on Tuesday it was a pen of lightweight gilts from H W Ward that made 94.5p/kilo.

The 200 cattle were generally a firm trade, although the bulls might have been 1p or so less. Continentals averaged around 96p/kilo up to a top of 110/kilo from D E Harrison.

Intervention-type steers were hovering around 100p/kilo, provided the quality was good enough, and the best price in this category went to Pam Gibson for a heavyweight making 105p/kilo. Top steer of the day came from Wilf Dunning, at 114p/kilo, but it was George Marwood who took the overall podium at 128p/kilo for another smart heifer.

Trade is really pretty sound at the moment and you can be sure of getting paid for quality in the live market.

Sheep numbers were low at 420, but trade was up on last week averaging 81p/kilo. Top lambs came from Miss Hutchinson of West Ayton and made 91p/kilo.