SKIPTON Town Council recently moved from its 'spiritual home' at Skipton Town Hall to new offices in Otley Street, in the former home of the Skipton Centre of the charity Cancer Support Yorkshire.

The council has been forced to up-sticks after suspended ceilings in its offices, on the first floor of the town hall collapsed - in October last year - leaving staff either temporarily moved to the North Yorkshire Council offices in Belle Vue Square, off Broughton Road, or shifting their desks into those bits of the first floor of the town hall away from the collapsing ceilings.

North Yorkshire Council has given itself permission to carry out the necessary repairs to the town hall - but when the work will take place, and whether the town council will return, is so far unknown.

A possibly little-known fact is that Skipton Town Council is almost exactly 50 years old, and was previously a parish council.

It was on July 10, 1974 that members of Skipton Parish Council voted to adopt the title of Town Council and have a Town Mayor.

It was not a unanimous choice, the vote was won by eight votes to four. The proposer, a Mr B T Short told the meeting that Skipton was unique in the Craven district and was an urban unit and town in every sense of the word. 'To use the word parish in the title is a misnomer' he told the meeting.

The chairman of the former Skipton Parish Council, Ernest Gill, became Skipton's first Mayor, his vice chairman, Mr D Hall became deputy mayor, and the parish clerk, Malcolm Garbutt, formerly parish clerk, became town clerk.

Dissenters to the move to town council status included Mr M W Crabtree who said it meant nothing than an altering of the name. It did not confer any more status or power on the council and moreover, to try to convey the impression that Skipton was 'special and different' was wrong.

He continued where there were 10 councillors representing the parish of Skipton on the then Craven District Council - which disappeared under local government reorganisation last year - there were 25 other councillors representing the something like 75 other parishes.

Mr Crabtree felt they had more than adequate representatives to put their claims on equal terms with the rest of the district.

"It is a very bad thing to start off with rivalry, jealousy and antagonism between different parts of the district", he told the meeting, as reported at the time by the Craven Herald.

He also reminded his fellow councillors that the parish was the oldest unit of local government and it was nothing derogatory whatsoever to say they were a parish council.

"I wonder whether Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Town Clerk might become more expensive than chairman, deputy chairman and parish clerk, " he added.

In support of the resolution, Mr J Robinson said that Skipton was the 'capital of Craven' and as capital, it ought to have a town council.

"I don't think it does any harm. Craven might think we are empire building," he said.

Mr G Leatt commented that Skipton was one of the four ancient towns in the East and West Riding and he thought the name town was more appropriate than parish. It was a little more glorification than they had, and what was wrong with a town like Skipton having a Mayor?

Skipton deserved whatever good status it could get and a town council for Skipton was far better than a parish council he said.

Mr P N Willey said he sympathised with both points of view, but asked 'what was in a name?'

"We've got the functions and responsibilities. It does not matter what we are called, as long as we get on with the job," he said.

The council, he went on, had to stand up and earn its status and prove to the Craven District Council that it was capable of looking after the affairs of the town and putting forward to the higher authorities the requirements of the town.

Mr E E Henkelis, looking at what was in a name, said that the most apt description of Skipton was a town.

Chairman, Ernest Gill, said it was what the council did that was important, and not what it was called. It was the quality of work that was the important thing.

Mr Gill, who was to become the first Mayor of the newly formed Town Council, was one of the four who voted against adopting town council status.

Craven District Council, which only came into being in 1974, as part of local government reorganisation, was in the same week tackling what the Herald described as the 'ticklish question of film censorship'.

It followed grave concerns from a ratepayer about the 1973 horror film, The Exorcist, which raised the issue whether the council should be 'moral guardians and censors'.