HAMBLETON Council's cabinet will be playing a dangerous game if it decides to exact a sort of retribution on Stokesley for the parish council's refusal to co-operate with its parking charges scheme.

The parish council's temerity in refusing to allow charges on the cobbled area may have irritated the council's leadership, and left a £38,000 a year hole in its revenues, but it seems churlish in the extreme to target the town for a series of service cuts commensurate with that hole.

Ever since Hambleton was created as a local authority more than 40 years ago, it has succeeded functioning effectively as a loose collection of market towns.

Geographically, the Hambleton boundaries made little sense but the five main towns shared a common interest as relatively small service centres for the rural areas surrounding them.

One of the council's great successes has been the general perception of fair treatment of its constituent parts. The leadership may claim that it is only fair to other parts of the district who are having to shoulder the burden of charges, but then what about Great Ayton and Easingwold?

Those two communities are not having charges imposed for different reasons, but nobody has suggested they should have services cut as a result.

Penalising Stokesley would be a public relations disaster for the council in the town.

The council's mission statement, "making life better", would be a sick joke indeed and relations between Stokesley and Stone Cross would be soured for years.