I AGREE with your correspondent Tony Robinson (D&S Times, Nov 27) that a flourishing civic society can play a subtle but vital part in the development of historic towns and landscapes. It is sad, therefore, that Northallerton will no longer have such a body.

However, the state of the civic movement nationally and regionally, here in the North of England, is not as bleak as he fears.

Here in Richmond, for instance, the civic society has flourished for more than 50 years, thanks to a long line of proactive residents and a membership of more than one hundred people.

Our planning group acts as consultees to the planning department and scrutinises every planning application affecting a conservation area or listed building in Richmondshire. This is no small undertaking for people working voluntarily but the town seems always to have produced a commitment to heritage protection among its residents.

Like many other civic societies, we have undertaken projects to support heritage tourism. Our plaque tour and our town information boards are good examples.

Recognising that such an awareness is strong locally and is usually linked to other interests such as history, archaeology, the arts and local affairs, we have always run a programme of monthly talks and visits and these have always been popular, leading in recent years to an annual ‘heritage holiday’. This coming year we are visiting the area of Bath and Wells.

All our activities are described on our website, richmondcivicsociety.org and on our Facebook page.

People living in Hambleton would be especially welcome to come and join us and thus not lose contact with this important local awareness.

Perhaps it is not too much to hope that such contact might even in time lead to the re-forming of a civic society in Northallerton.

John McDonald, chair, Richmond and District Civic Society