THE people of Holcombe built a bonfire on Holcombe Hill to celebrate the Millennium and a torch-light procession of betwenn 5,000 and 10,000 people (estimates vary) climbed the hill in the dark and the rain to see it lit on New Year's Eve.

For the past three months anyone thinking of walking up the hill has been threatened with a fine of £5,000.

Now, a month since the Department of the Environment issued its "Framework for re-opening Rights of Way and Access Land" restrictions are slowly being relaxed and the main track to the tower has just been opened. But the paths from the moor bottom have new closure signs attached. Why?

The DETR framework suggested that any land not used by livestock should re-open. That was a month ago. There is no livestock on the front of the hill between the moor bottom and the fence across the common, known as Edmundson's Fence.

The walk up to Holcombe Tower should never have been closed in the first place because there is no livestock, except when sheep venture onto other people's land.

D.E. SWITHENBANK,

Holcombe, Bur