Financial woes force Harrogate café to close

A café set up to reduce food waste, loneliness and food poverty in Harrogate has been forced to close due to financial pressures. 

Resurrected Bites’ Give As You Can café has been held at St Paul’s United Reformed Church in Harrogate on Wednesdays, but low footfall and high costs have made it unviable. 

Michelle Hayes, director and founder of Resurrected Bites, told the Stray Ferret: 

“We’re making such a loss that we’re getting to the point where we can’t cover staff wages. We can’t sustain it.” 

Resurrected Bites also runs a community groceries scheme with bases in Harrogate and Knaresborough for people in food poverty, as well as two other cafés, at Gracious Street Methodist Church in Knaresborough on Fridays and at Killinghall Methodist Church on Thursdays, which she said are still doing well. 

Resurrected Bites’ expenditure for the first three months of this financial year varied between £15,000 and £17,000 per month, resulting in a shortfall of £8,000 to £10,000 to be made up from grants or fundraising. 

To help stabilise the organisation, Ms Hayes has split it, with the Resurrected Bites charity as the main fundraising body covering the community groceries and environmental aspects of preventing food waste. As a charity, any donations are eligible for Gift Aid, boosting them by 25%. 

But the cafés are not eligible for charitable status because there are no restrictions on who may provide custom. 

Ms Hayes said: 

“Charitable status would restrict us to only serving people who are lonely or in food poverty. We feel that our existing model of focusing on the environmental aspects of food waste enables us to support people who are in food poverty or are lonely without stigmatising them.

“Legally, the charity cannot support the shortfall in finances for the community interest company, and so we have to ensure the cafés raise enough revenue to cover their costs.

“That’s why we had to make the very difficult decision to close the Harrogate café whilst we consider how we can generate more income to cover its costs.

“We’re hoping that it’s temporary. We may be able to find a new venue with a bigger space so that we can get more people through, and attract a wider range of customers who can pay more.

“Once we get through this rough patch, I think we’ll be alright.”

Photo: The Killinghall Methodist Church cafe run by Resurrected Bites remains open.

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Trading Hell: A Stray Ferret investigation reveals how Harrogate shop workers routinely face threats, shoplifting and anti-social behaviour

Shocking levels of anti-social behaviour, drug-dealing, shoplifting and even threats to staff are all routine occurrences faced by many shop workers in Harrogate town centre, a Stray Ferret investigation has revealed. 

Even though Harrogate is widely viewed as one of the finest shopping towns in the North, our investigation pieced together a picture of “scary” back alleys where shop workers fear to go, and high streets that shoppers have started to avoid. 

We surveyed 50 businesses in the town centre and spoke to many retailers at length. We found a deep sense of frustration among traders, most of whom feel not nearly enough is being done to make our shopping streets the safe and pleasant places they should be. 

What’s more, while some traders had shocking stories to tell, only a handful were willing to be quoted by name. Most preferred to remain anonymous for fear of becoming a target. 

In a series of articles running through this week, we’ll be examining the problems that make life difficult for town-centre businesses, finding out what’s being done to tackle them, looking at whether it’s working, and asking if there may be a better approach.

Our Trading Hell survey covered almost all the businesses on Oxford Street, Cambridge Street, Cambridge Road, Market Place and the Victoria Shopping Centre, as well as parts of Beulah Street and James Street. 

The vast majority of businesses polled (96%) said that anti-social behaviour is a problem – only two said it isn’t – and 52% said it’s a major problem. 

Graphic showing responses to the question 'How much of a problem for your business is anti-social behaviour?'. 'It's a major problem' - 52% 'It's a problem, but not major' - 26% 'It's a minor problem' - 18% 'It's not a problem' - 4%

Other behaviours considered to be a problem included shoplifting (78%), street-drinking (74%), threats to staff (70%), rough sleeping (70%), begging (68%) and drug misuse (66%). 

Shockingly, 20% of town-centre businesses face threats to staff at least once a week. 

One trader told the Stray Ferret: 

“I’ve been working here for 18 months and it’s been a shocker. This place has become lawless in the town centre.”

 Graphic showing that 20% of Harrogate town centre businesses see threats to staff as a major problem.

Hotspot 

Our survey showed that nowhere is immune to the problems, but there are hotspots, and the “hottest” spot is centred on the intersection of Oxford Street and Cambridge Road – the area between McDonalds, Wesley Chapel and the Halifax bank. 

One shop owner said: 

“There are often groups drinking around the doorway, which discourages customers, and hanging around under shelter, shouting and swearing in the street. It makes for an unpleasant environment.” 

Nearby, Ian Hall, store manager of Games Crusade on Oxford Street, recounted a disturbing incident when he had to physically keep two men apart. He said: 

“Two gentlemen came chasing through the street and the first one bolted through our door and ran to the back of the shop. He looked really scared. The second one was shouting and swearing at him, calling him all sorts of names, and wanted to knock seven bells out of him.

“I stood in the doorway and told him he couldn’t come in and eventually he calmed down and left. If he had come in, I think they’d probably have started fighting in the shop, knocking things over and destroying stock. Anything could have happened.”

But the problems are by no means confined to adults. One trader told us he had to be particularly vigilant against theft in the late afternoon, when school pupils “flooded” into the town centre.

Two years ago, two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) were seriously injured in an attack by three schoolgirls in McDonalds. One of the officers suffered a suspected broken nose and the other later left the service, partly as a result of the incident. One of the girls narrowly avoided a custodial sentence.

Graphic showing that 74% of Harrogate town centre businesses see street drinking as a problem.

Alcohol wasn’t a factor in that case, but it does appears to be a common feature of much of the town centre’s anti-social behaviour and is believed to have played a part in an incident on Oxford Street last May, when a man admitted to pulling the wing off a pigeon. 

A common view among traders is that the problems are showing no signs of getting any better. On the contrary, one said: 

“It’s got much worse in the last two to three years. You can smell weed on the street, there’s drug-dealing in front of our door, and I’ve even had to call an ambulance for somebody.” 

Lost business 

While these problems are not pleasant for shoppers and passers-by, for businesses they translate into lost trade and, for some smaller traders, damage to livelihoods.  

One Oxford Street retailer said: 

“My shop windows were smashed more than once, and it cost me a lot of money to replace them.” 

Graphic showing that 74% of Harrogate town centre businesses have lost revenue due to the problems they face trading.

Others complained of casual shoplifting. Games Crusade’s Ian Hall said: 

“We get drunk people coming into the shop and trying to walk out with stock. It’s not underhand – it’s in full view. I just take it off them and that tends to be the end of it. But you have to have your wits about you all the time.” 

Across the town centre, nearly three in every four businesses (74%) said they had lost trade as a result of some or all of these behaviours. Among Oxford Street retailers, the figure was 100%, and many are convinced that footfall is down as a result.

The manager of one shop said: 

“Anti-social behaviour and street-drinking discourage the general public from visiting this part of town.” 

Paul Rawlinson, who has two businesses on Oxford Street, Baltzersen’s and Bakeri Baltzersen, said: 

“Oxford Steet has become a much less desirable place to walk down as a result of these behaviours. It’s more pronounced during the summer, when rough sleeping is a more comfortable option than it is in winter.” 

Back streets 

Although the main streets of the town centre are where activities such as street drinking and anti-social behaviour are most visible, the back alleys are where other things happen for the most part unseen. 

Last year, a woman was seriously sexually assaulted in an alley to the rear of Clarks shoe shop in Market Place. That alley was finally closed off by a new gate after three years of lobbying, but other backstreets are still used for illegal activities. 

One shop worker on Cambridge Street told us: 

“Staff feel unsafe going out the back of the store because of large groups of kids smoking weed and shouting abuse to intimidate us. It’s quite scary. Also, drunks use our property and we find needles and glass bottles lying around.”

During our investigation, we discovered down one back alley abandoned prescription drugs, discarded clothing, clusters of clothes hangers – presumably dumped by shoplifters – and even a notebook containing obscene sexual content.

What’s being done…

One body that has tried to do something about the town centre’s problems is Harrogate BID (business improvement district). It would like to see a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) put in place banning certain behaviours, such as persistent begging and street drinking, from the town centre. But according to the national guidelines, these can only be applied if crime levels are above a certain benchmark, which Harrogate doesn’t reach.

BID manager Matthew Chapman said: 

“The statistics showed that the number of crimes is very low in the town centre. 

“While on the face of it this seems like good news, the stats just didn’t match up with what we were hearing from BID members.

“Shop owners and staff were telling us they were regularly seeing relatively minor crime, but the police figures just didn’t reflect this.” 

So two years ago, the BID launched a campaign to encourage town-centre businesses to report crime. For three months it promoted its Report a Crime initiative, telling traders to report every crime, no matter how minor. But bizarrely, crime figures over that period went down, so the PSPO is still a goal rather than a reality – and the BID is still lobbying for it. We’ll be speaking to Matthew Chapman about the PSPO and the BID’s efforts to tackle these issues in Friday’s feature.

…and what’s not 

Several traders told the Stray Ferret that they had stopped reporting low-value thefts because they did not believe the police would do anything about them. Worse still, we uncovered a widespread belief that the problems plaguing the town centre are simply not being adequately addressed. When asked how well the issues are being tackled by the authorities, 38% said ‘badly’ and 32% – almost one in three – thought the problems weren’t being tackled at all.

Graphic showing that town-centre businesses blame the police more than any other organisation for the problems they face.

Two in every five traders (40%) blamed the police for failing to tackle the issues, many of them complaining that the police response to reports of theft is slow and ineffective. A report released last week by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services following its inspection of North Yorkshire Police only rated the force “adequate” at investigating crime and responding to the public, although this assessment was better than last year, when it received the notice “requires improvement” in both areas.

One town-centre jeweller said his shop had been burgled last summer when thieves stole £60,000 worth of stock, but claimed the police response was inept and late. He said:

“It took the police 12 hours to respond to my initial 999 call, and when they did, they said they’d pass my details on to the appropriate officer ‘a week on Friday’ because he was on a course.

“Very soon after the theft, someone told me they knew who had committed the crime and even where my stock was being held. I believed them because the details they gave were bang on. I told the police, but it took them eight months to arrest anybody, and by that time the evidence had all disappeared.

“They lost emails with my details in them and didn’t even have my telephone number. As far as I know, nobody’s yet been charged.”

The Stray Ferret has spoken to Chief Inspector Simon Williamson of North Yorkshire Police about the force’s response to reports of crime, and you can read the interview here on Thursday.

In the meantime, traders are becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress in improving conditions in the centre of “one of the finest shopping towns in the North”. One shopkeeper said: 

“I see it all here. Every week there’s something going on. I speak to other business owners and there’s a general feeling on the street that there’s no-one in power who’s doing anything about it – and it just gets worse.”

Tomorrow – what exactly do the official stats show? We report on a huge rise in shop-lifting and examine the extent of drug taking and wider anti-social behaviour cases reported to police in Harrogate town centre.  

Have you got a story to tell about any of the issues covered in this article? Let us know by emailing us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

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Pottery workshop moves to larger Knaresborough premises

A popular pottery workshop in Knaresborough is moving to a larger studio in what is fast becoming the town’s thriving art hub.

Northernline Arts is relocating from its current home on platform 2 at Knaresborough railway station to new premises on Kirkgate.

Run by former pottery teacher Maria Dawbarn, Northernline Arts is a workshop space that gives people the opportunity to take part in a diverse range of creative clay and potters wheel sessions.

Since opening its doors almost exactly three years ago, the business has grown steadily, attracting increasing numbers of people either trying pottery as a one-off experience, or taking it up as a regular hobby.

Owner Maria set up the workshop after first training in ceramic at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at Dundee University and then spending 23 years teaching at Henshaw Arts and Crafts Centre before moving into a management role.

She said:

“I first tried pottery at school and have been hooked ever since, I still get real joy working with clay every day.

“My career saw me moving from teaching into a management role, after more than a decade doing that, I was missing being hands on so I decided the time was right to embark on a new adventure and set up my own studio.

“I’m sure the popularity of the Pottery Throwdown on TV has had a positive impact, but it’s been great to see so many people coming along to try the potter’s wheel sessions. We also have a thriving community of regulars.

“I’m delighted I can work with people every day to share my passion for ceramics and continue to make my own wheel-thrown work.”

Maria hopes the new studio, which is due to open on Tuesday, April 2, will become an exciting art hub for Knaresborough.

As well as giving her and other potters a chance to display and sell their work, she also plans to expand the range of classes available and hold demonstrations of other crafts.

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Police and council launch project to tackle crime in Harrogate

A new drive to target anti-social behaviour, street crime and shoplifting in Harrogate has been launched by North Yorkshire Police and North Yorkshire Council. 

Project Spotlight was announced yesterday, just days before the Stray Ferret publishes Trading Hell, a week-long series of features investigating these very issues. 

Over the course of our investigation we spoke to a chief inspector from North Yorkshire Police, as well as North Yorkshire Council, Harrogate BID, Harrogate Homeless Project and dozens of town centre traders. You can read the first of our special reports on Monday. 

Project Spotlight sees teams working with residents, shoppers, town-centre workers and businesses to: 

Project Spotlight builds on work between North Yorkshire Police, North Yorkshire Council and other organisations to address street crime, retail theft, begging, rough sleeping, substance abuse and anti-social behaviour. 

Photo of a police officer and someone from Harrogate District Community Safety Partnership talking to a store manager from Primark in Harrogate.

Project Spotlight will work with retailers to tackle shoplifting and other town-centre problems.

In a sample of 140 patrols of the town centre since October 2023, North Yorkshire Police made 10 arrests and moved people on or gave words of advice 54 times. The force also issued one dispersal order, which effectively bans someone from an area for a certain amount of time. 

Harrogate neighbourhood policing inspector Nicola Colbourne said:  

“Project Spotlight sees us stepping up that positive work we’ve already done with partner organisations, the public and town-centre businesses. 

“We’re using a good old-fashioned mix of community engagement, information-gathering, targeted policing and robust law enforcement during this project, which we’re delivering alongside policing Harrogate’s wider residential areas. 

“Harrogate is already an incredibly safe town, in what is officially England’s safest county. With the help of the public, businesses and key organisations, we’re working hard to make it even safer.” 


North Yorkshire Council’s assistant chief executive for local engagement, Rachel Joyce, said:

“Alongside North Yorkshire Police and others, we have been working hard to maintain Harrogate town centre’s reputation as a safe and welcoming place in which to visit and work.
“Operation Spotlight presents an opportunity for all concerned to come together and build on this work. To do this we need the co-operation of the public and the business community and I would encourage everyone to support us in this aim.”

Project Spotlight comes in response to problems highlighted by the Stray Ferret’s Trading Hell survey, which revealed very high levels of dissatisfaction among town-centre traders at North Yorkshire Police’s response to anti-social behaviour and retail theft.

The results of the survey, some of which have been shared with North Yorkshire Police, will be revealed in our first Trading Hell report, published on Monday.

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Business Q&A: Victoria Clark, French Soaps

This is the latest in a regular series of Business Q&A features published weekly.  

This week, we spoke to Victoria Clark, owner of French Soaps in Harrogate.

Tell us in fewer than 30 words what your firm does. 

We’re the largest importer of French soap in the UK. Our products are all natural, traditional soaps made in the Provence and Marseilles region of France.

What does it require to be successful in business? 

For me there are two things. Firstly, people. You’ve got to have the right people around and you have to look after them, and that starts from the top. ‘People’ also includes customers. People should always come first.

Secondly, having a focus: knowing what you’re good at and sticking with it. Own your space. Know it, love it, and be brilliant at it.

What drives you to do what you do every day? 

The customers and the product. I love my products and I love surprising people, delighting people, and having happy customers.

What has been the toughest issue your company has had to deal with over the last 12 months? 

Supplies. We work with some big savonneries in France and also with some small, family savonneries. Last summer, it was particularly hot and a lot of our products are handmade, and there were a lot of problems in terms of being able to make product in sufficient quantity when it was cool enough.

Which other local firms do you most admire and why? 

To have a successful business, you need to have a focus, stick at it and be brilliant at it, so for me, that has to be Bettys. They do what they do really well, and they haven’t tried to go out of area or do anything that they can’t manage and control.

Who are the most inspiring local leaders? 

Any business needs to evolve, and the best often do that through a constant series of small changes and tweaks that keep things fresh and alive.

For me, the people that do that really well are the Mackanesses at Rudding Park. They’re always looking at what they’re doing and moving it on.

What could be done locally to boost business? 

Improve parking to make it easier for people to use the facilities in the town. We need 10-15 minutes of free parking in the centre of town, not big pedestrian zones or hour-long car-parking charges everywhere.

If you live in an outlying area like I do, you just want to go in, do what you need to do, and leave. I don’t want to be parking and getting a bus – I’m not there for a day-trip, I’m there to use the facilities.

Best and worst things about running a business from Harrogate? 

I love working in Harrogate and running a business here. Our customers love the fact we’re in Harrogate, and there’s a perception that it’s a good brand fit: a nice product in a nice location.

The worst thing is that prime retail locations are so expensive! My company needs a prime retail location because that’s what the brand needs, and I’d need the footfall to make it viable, but the cost of doing that doesn’t work for me with the size of business I have at the moment.

Photo of packets of French soap flakes on a shelf at Harrogate business French Soaps.

What are your business plans for the future? 

We’re going to start doing some shows, so this year you’ll find us at the Harrogate Flower Show in April.

We’re also working with some other brands and there are various new launches coming along, although I can’t say too much about that at the moment. We’ve always got something happening

What do you like to do on your time off? 

I play golf, love pilates and yoga, and enjoy dog agility and scent work – so I’m busy most of the time.

Best place to eat and drink locally?

In Harrogate, Konak Meze, the Turkish restaurant on Mount Parade.

Slightly out of town, our favourite place is Harewood: Muddy Boots Café and The Hovels. But I’m always open to trying new places.

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Business Q&A: Dan Simpson, Harrogate Organics

This is the latest in a regular series of Business Q&A features published weekly.  

This week, we spoke to Dan Simpson, co-owner of Harrogate Organics in Harrogate.

Tell us in fewer than 30 words what your firm does. 

We sell products that can help solve problems such as sleep, anxiety and stress. Sleep is the number-one wellness product on the planet. If you’re getting sleep, you’re regenerating; if not, you’re degenerating.

What does it require to be successful in business? 

Nerve. It’s cliché, but if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. Everything in business is a test, a lesson, and you just have to hold your nerve and keep persevering.

What drives you to do what you do every day? 

It’s a cheesy answer, but customer feedback. This is the best job in the world, because we get such profound feedback. It’s not unusual for a customer to tell us “You’ve changed my life”.

What has been the toughest issue your company has had to deal with over the last 12 months? 

Finance: the acquisition of capital. Logistics are tough, but the headwinds of opening in a UK business market are really difficult. Banks make it nearly impossible to borrow money to invest in the business.

Business rates are archaic too – it’s just unreasonable the way high-street companies are charged they way they are, compared with online companies.

Which other local firms do you most admire and why? 

I like Harrogate Spring Water and what they’ve achieved. I like the brand and what they’ve done with it.

I admire NEOM too – they have a nice, clean brand.

Who are the most inspiring local leaders? 

I don’t have any. I was a Harrogate boy from the age of nine to 17, but moved to London for four years and then spent the next 20 years away in Dubai. Since I’ve got back, I don’t feel like my feet have touched the ground, so I’m going to abstain from that one!

Photo of Dan Simpson, co-founder of Harrogate Organics.

Dan Simpson

What could be done locally to boost business? 

More could done to market Harrogate externally. We have Harrogate BID and it does things like the Christmas Market very well, but I think more could be done in terms of encouraging more pop-up shops in unused locations. There are loads of small businesses out there that would be fantastic doing that.

Parking too. Not much is done to encourage people to come into town. I know we need to encourage a green ethos – taking the bus and cycling – but the reality is that Harrogatonians are relatively lazy. I don’t mean that critically, but it’s quite a wealthy town, most people have multiple cars, and it’s easier just to drive into town than it is to hop on a bus.

People just don’t want to pay for parking. If they have to, they’ll just shop online. But online is great if you want to buy a spanner, but you need to be able to browse around towns.

The other thing is: business rates have got to go. I wouldn’t usually vote Labour, but it’s in their manifesto, so I would this time.

Best and worst things about running a business from Harrogate? 

The best: the Harrogate name has a respectability about it, which is why we used it in our name. There’s a kudos attached to it.

The downside: it’s a minor niggle, but connectivity. We only just connected to fibre last week, so it shouldn’t be an issue anymore, but it has been a big problem. We’ve had to shut the shop about 10 times over the last two years because the copper wires just couldn’t cope, so we couldn’t run our phones, computers, tills or music.

What are your business plans for the future? 

The next step for us is more of a centralised distribution and logistical solution, because we’re growing at such an incredible rate. We’ll keep the shop because a) we like it, and b) people like to know they’re buying from an actual physical entity, but realistically, we’re going to need a a warehouse so we can get larger volumes of product out.

Once we’ve got to that point, then we’ll start looking at certifications like B Corp.

What do you like to do on your time off? 

Time off? Good one! I work, and at weekends it’s chores – doing things and fixing things. I like golf when I play it, but I played twice last year!

Best place to eat and drink locally? 

There are lots of good places in Harrogate. I like Spice Culture, the Little Ale House and Starling – anywhere independent and a bit different.

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‘I’ll probably lock the door and cry’, says owner of closing Harrogate shop

When Jo Brain opened a sandwich shop on Skipton Road in Harrogate in 1972, she probably little suspected that it would still be serving up bacon butties more than half a century later. 

The Bread Bin became the go-to place for a quick breakfast, brunch or lunch in the New Park area long before “go-to place” was a commonly used phrase. 

After passing through several owners’ hands in the 1980s, it was bought by Jenny Stanley, who in 1991 took on Lesley Smith as an employee. Lesley bought it in 1997, and it is her daughter, Jude Gray, who runs it today. 

But, as reported by the Stray Ferret last week, the Bread Bin’s regular customers will have to find a new place to grab a sandwich, because the local landmark shop is to close within weeks. 

Jude took the decision to shut a couple of months ago. She told the Stray Ferret: 

“Since covid we’ve watched the stock prices go up, and the utilities have all got more expensive. Brexit hasn’t helped. It’s put a lot of importers off bringing produce in, so for example salad is more expensive, and the new import checks coming in will only make it worse. 

“We’ve downsized from six people to three since covid hit, but at New Year we thought it just wasn’t going to get any better.” 

For many who live and work in New Park, it will be the end of an era, and for some, almost the passing of a daily part of life. Jude said: 

“We’ve had some very long-standing customers. It’s quite unusual for a shop like this – usually they rely on passing trade. 

“One man first came in in 1979 when he was a soldier based at Penny Pot. He’s now a pensioner but he still comes in – 45 years later. 

“We don’t tend to know people by name, but we do know their orders. With some of them, as soon as they come through the door we start cooking for them, because we know exactly what they want.” 

The menu offers the old standards – any of the main components of a cooked breakfast, in bread – as well as more recent innovations, such as Chinese chicken mayonnaise and piri piri chicken. And chips, of course. Jude said: 

“It’s a bit of a time-warp, really. Some of the newer places tend to have healthier menus, and I did give that a try, but the customers weren’t interested. They gave it a poke but preferred to stick with their old favourites.” 

With such a loyal customer base, it must be a going concern, so why didn’t she just put it on the market? After all, cafés and eateries are always springing up around town – there must be someone willing to give it a go? But that, it seems, is exactly the problem – there are at least six sandwich shops currently on the market in Harrogate. Jude said: 

“There are so many other cafés up for sale at the moment, and they’re just not shifting. We would have been waiting a hell of a long time to sell it.” 

Instead, Jude plans to convert it into a house, and swap homes with her mum. She said: 

“Mum lives in a lovely little flat upstairs, and we’ll move into that, and my husband’s very into cycling, so downstairs will become somewhere he can keep his bikes. Mum will move into the house we’ve been living in, which is all on one level.” 

The house-swap is about as far into the future as Jude is looking – she doesn’t yet have any firm plans for the future. She doesn’t think she’ll regret saying goodbye to the Bread Bin, and yet shutting up shop for the last time at the end of February – or possibly in March – won’t be easy. She said: 

“I’ll probably just lock the door for the last time and cry. I’ve made more money in other jobs, but this has definitely been my favourite.  

“But it’s for the best. I’m pleased we’ve made this decision.” 

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Why is Harrogate so lacking in fun for young people?

For parents of older children and teenagers it’s a familiar refrain: “There’s nothing to do”. But in the Harrogate district, the kids have got a point: there is very little for them do that’s indoors, legal and affordable. 

There are sporting facilities of course, but most young people’s friendship groups are not based on a single interest such as gymnastics or cricket, and besides, the balance between physical activity and social interaction at sports clubs often tends to be tipped towards sweat rather than fun. For pure, escapist enjoyment, there’s not a lot out there. 

It’s a problem Sally Haslewood is all too familiar with. As founder of family matters website Harrogate Mumbler, she knows very well what options there are for teenagers in the district. She told the Stray Ferret: 

“Harrogate is quite well-served for things for under-12s, but once they get a bit older, there’s very little. There’s really not a lot for them to do other than hang around. 

“The poor kids have got nowhere to go. I grew up in Harrogate, and it’s been a problem here for a long time. 

“When Oxygen [trampoline park] opened in York last week, the reaction on Mumbler was really enthusiastic – it created quite a buzz – but people were also asking ‘why can’t we have something like that here?’. 

Why indeed. Why is there such a dearth of indoor activities for people of pre-drinking age in Harrogate, and – perhaps more to the point – is there any chance of the situation changing? 

Trampolining

A few years ago, it very nearly did. In December 2017, a company called Go Jumpin Ltd was granted planning permission to build an indoor trampoline centre at Hornbeam Park. 

Families around the district cheered, and waited. But in vain. Go Jumpin went bust and was bought out by a firm that decided not to go ahead with the plans. The centre was never built. 

You might think that since then, some other company would have taken up the cause. After all, Harrogate has a far higher average income than most other towns in the region, as well as nearly 7,000 secondary school-aged children. The council was surely onside – it had granted planning permission – and the demand is certainly there. 

In the case of trampoline parks, one big issue is height. Hornbeam Park Developments’ Chris Bentley, who remembers the Go Jumpin episode well, said: 

“The problem is that you need 10-12 metres in height and most large buildings are only six metres at the eaves, so it’s very difficult to find a building with that height.” 

That’s not a problem, though, for pretty much any other indoor leisure pursuit – they tend to be more ground-based – and yet we don’t have many of those either. 

We did have an ice rink over Christmas, and many people – including Sally Haslewood – appreciated the extra dimension it brought to the town’s leisure options. So the Stray Ferret contacted several ice-rink operators and a governing body several times to ask how likely a more permanent, indoor facility in the town might be, but received no reply from any of them. Take that as you will, but it could be interpreted as an indicator of their level of interest in the town.

The outdoor ice-rink at Christmas in Harrogate.

The temporary outdoor Christmas ice-rink in Harrogate. Photo: Smart Avenue Media.

Bowling alleys

Bowling alleys, on the other hand, could be a more likely prospect, and are arguably exactly the kind of facility that Harrogate is crying out for. After all, most operators nowadays don’t just offer bowling, but have other activities on site as well, such as air hockey, crazy pool, ping-pong, batting cages, indoor golf and even karaoke. 

Young people in our neighbouring cities are spoilt for choice: Leeds has two bowling-led leisure facilities, and York has two within a 10-minute drive of each other. Even Skipton has one. 

In contrast, Harrogate did once have a bowling alley on Tower Street that offered a few lanes of kegelbahn – a German nine-pin variant – but there have been no signs of a replacement since it closed a generation ago. 

Gary Brimble, general secretary of industry body UK Tenpin Bowling Operators, suspects it may be a matter of size. He told us: 

“Harrogate’s proximity to Leeds and York is probably the reason why nobody has wanted to open a bowling centre there. 

“The vast majority of the centres run by the two biggest providers, Hollywood and Tenpin, have 24 lanes or more, like the ones those companies have in Leeds. They look for huge spaces of 25-60,000 sq ft, and it takes a lot of catchment to fill that. The same goes for multiplex cinemas, which Harrogate also doesn’t have. 

“But Harrogate might appeal more to smaller providers. Lane 7, Roxy Leisure and Gravity are all expanding rapidly and looking for new sites. They tend to go in with eight, 10 or 12 lanes, coupled with a very good food and drink offer.” 

Lane 7 has 13 venues nationally, and four “coming soon”, including one in York. Owner Tim Wilks told the Stray Ferret: 

“We’ve looked at Harrogate before and it is somewhere we would consider putting a small bowling alley, however, finding the right property with the right rent makes it difficult – it’s an affluent area and with that comes higher rents.”

High rents and no students

This is a factor mentioned by many in the leisure industry: Harrogate just a little on the expensive side. One leisure property specialist told us: 

“The rents in central Harrogate are about the same as they are in Leeds city centre, mainly because it’s a nice place to be, but you’ll probably make half the turnover in Harrogate that you would in Leeds. So it all comes down to: where would a leisure company rather go?” 

The same source pinpointed another factor which weighs heavily with modern leisure companies. They said: 

“One of the problems with Harrogate is that there isn’t much of an after-work corporate crowd or a student population past drinking age. The majority of people over 18 leave, at least for a few years while they’re at university, and that raises issues with staffing: who’s going to work there?” 

A possible solution

Nevertheless, the very fact that at least one trampoline company and one bowling operator have considered opening facilities in Harrogate suggests that the town is not beyond hope, and perhaps the model pioneered by Gravity could offer a solution.

The Wakefield-based company has recently taken over former Debenhams premises in Liverpool and Wandsworth, transforming the town-centre department stores into hi-tech leisure hubs, with e-karting, urban street golf, virtual-reality shoot-outs and alternative-reality ten-pin bowling. 

Harrogate, of course, has a vacant Debenhams – with a multi-storey car-park next door. And, says Gary Brimble, bowling alleys tend to be regarded as a “planning gain”. He said: 

“You don’t get the problems and the concerns from the neighbours that you get with some other types of business, such as casinos or nightclubs, with the noise and people tipping out into the street all at the same time. We tend to be very good neighbours.” 

Sadly, though, that ship may have sailed – the new owners of the Debenhams site have applied for planning permission to convert the building into retail units and flats above. But the principle is still valid, according to Hornbeam Park’s Chris Bentley. He said: 

“If you could find buildings that could accommodate four or five different leisure facilities, plus catering and toilets, that could be good. You’d be hard pressed to find a newbuild in Harrogate to accommodate all that, but if Boots or M&S ever moved out of their current premises in Harrogate, they’d be perfect – you could have multiple operators there: bowling, paintballing, laser, go-karting.

“The same management could look after the whole thing and it would have the same toilets and catering, and you’d get economies of scale, which is what you need in Harrogate.” 

M&S upping sticks might seem like a distant prospect (even if it looks likely in Bradford), but the economic headwinds that are currently giving most sectors such a rough passage appear to be filling the sails of the leisure companies. While many other industries are hunkering down and hoping for better days, bowling operators are enjoying something of a boom. Data from Lloyds Bank shows a massive increase in spending at alleys in December, up by 106% on the previous year – more than any other activity in the ‘non-essential spending’ category. 

Gary Brimble said: 

“Bowling operators have had continued growth throughout the recession, and there is an awful lot of activity in the leisure sector. There are more locations now, and more spending going on at existing locations. They don’t seem to be as affected as some other companies by people tightening their pursestrings.” 

So while the demand is there, and the operators are flush with cash, perhaps one of the smaller operators will meet the demand that has been pent up in Harrogate for decades. In spite of the high rents and the absence of a student population, Harrogate might yet attract an entrepreneurial leisure operator that could give young people a reason to go out on a wet weekend, and “something to do”.

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‘Unflappable’ owls wow wedding guests with ring deliveries

Just before Christmas one year, Ryan Stocks received a phone call from an employee to tell him that one of his owls was stuck behind a church organ. 

The owl, who had been on duty at a wedding, had been spooked by something and wouldn’t come down. It had even set off a fire alarm by landing on a sensor. The trouble was, Ryan was in London but the owl was in Hull. 

After dashing up the motorway, he arrived at the church just before it shut, spotted his bird, held out his hand, whistled and waited. Within seconds, the owl glided down and the drama was over. 

Last year, Ryan’s Ripon-based company, Owl Adventures, bought Barn Owl Ring-Bearer, a Durham-based firm that was the first in the UK to hire out owls trained to deliver the rings at weddings, and he’s been busy ever since. 

The ‘Hull incident’ was a rare glitch, he explains: 

“That particular owl, it transpired, would only fly for me. I’d hand-reared it and it had latched on to me probably more than an owl normally would do. So it would fly to anyone, but only if I was present – if he could see me for comfort or confidence. But that’s just an example of how different their personalities are.” 

He adds: 

“The bride didn’t want a refund – she was just so happy that we got the owl down.” 

A former pupil of Ripon City School (now Outwood Academy), Ryan, now an experienced falconer, set up Owl Adventures in 2011 and has 15 birds: three barn owls and 12 others, including a horned owl, steppe eagle, falcon, harris hawks, pygmy owl, Indian scops owl and a white-faced owl. 

He also runs a ‘mobile zoo’, whose stars – snakes, lizards, tarantulas, a tortoise and various creepy-crawlies (his term) – all live in vivariums in his home. 

Ryan and his fiancée Dee, who is, thankfully, as enthusiastic as he is about the whole menagerie, offer several services, all animal-based, including flying shows, visits to schools and care homes. 

They even offer pest control, flying harris hawks to scare off pigeons and seagulls from industrial premises. Clients include Unilever, B&Q and Reckitt. 

But it’s the barn owl ring-bearing service that grabs people’s attention. Not because it’s unique – it may be the first service of its kind, but it’s no longer the only one – but because it’s so magical: owls make people happy.

Ryan says: 

“The best weddings are when people are laughing in the service. When I hear that before I go into the room, I think ‘this is going to be great’. You’re going to get a good reaction. 

“And some of the nicest weddings we do are some of the smaller ones really, in one of the nice wedding venues. Most of the weddings we do are outside or they are in hotels or castles or a specialist wedding venue. Because the people who are going to go for an owl are probably a bit more likely to be people who want a less traditional wedding.” 

Photo of a barn owl flying silently down the aisle as guests look on at a small church wedding.

One of Ryan’s Stocks’ owls earning its keep.

Typically, Ryan will turn up for a wedding an hour early, to ensure that he and the owl can get into position unseen – it’s supposed to be a secret, known only to the groom and best man. 

He’ll then quickly train the owl-receiver to do his bit, and at the right point in the ceremony will slip into the back of the church, and release the owl. The best man, wearing a previously concealed glove, receives the owl, the rings are delivered, and the bride, hopefully, is delighted. 

Some clients ask him to have the owl deliver notes, which isn’t great, he says: 

“They have to be folded up really tiny, because something flat like that will cause a bit of drag on the bird.” 

After the ceremony, Ryan and his owl stick around to entertain guests and be photographed. 

They can do up to three weddings a day in high season, as well as other shows, so he alternates the owls, Juno, Bailey, Sweep and Dusty. They’ve performed all over the UK, and even have a booking in Greece later this year. 

Photo of a happy bridge and groom, who is wearing a falconry gautlet and a white barn owl is perching on his hand.

Photo: Camilla Armstrong.

He says: 

“It feels busy now and it’s winter. Summer frightens me, because we’ll have five things a day sometimes. We might have one pest-control hawk going out to a factory, we might have two static display events, one flying show and two weddings. Logistically, it’s quite a challenge. You just think, ‘please don’t get ill, please don’t have a vehicle breakdown’!” 

Most of the time, the owls behave – Ryan says it’s as if the glove is magnetic – but occasionally things don’t go to plan, as happened in Hull. 

He even had one owl that was agoraphobic, and didn’t like flying outside. 

“We didn’t use that one for weddings – we just found it a suitable home. That’s quite rare.

“We hand-rear them, and have dogs around them, and music and noise, so they’re very much used to noise and distraction. 

“Some of the shows we do – game fairs, steam rallies, dog shows, horse shows, stunt shows – are really noisy, and there can even be people firing guns. And you just think ‘they won’t fly in this’, but they don’t care. They’re so used to people, and things that people get up to, that they’re just not bothered by it at all.” 

You could say they’re… unflappable. But that’s not to say they don’t need looking after. They have a varied diet – cockerel chicks, mice, rats, rabbit, quail, all frozen and delivered by truck – and Ryan checks their health and weighs them daily. He says: 

“They live about three times as long in captivity as they do in the wild. One reason is that they’re not eating any poison or disease in the prey they catch. A pigeon can carry up to 21 diseases, and the poison that can be used against rodents can be dangerous too. 

“The thing about birds is that they don’t look ill until the very end. So capturing things really early, be it bumblefoot or frounce, or one of those common things, is vital.” 

Fortunately, he’s pretty good at that. In fact, when he goes to goes to the vets in Ripon, they sometimes ask him his opinion. 

He says: 

“They invite me into their examination rooms to look at the bird. I feel like a fraud – I’m not a vet! – but I know more about birds of prey than they do.” 

Ryan and his feathered employees are proof, if it were needed, that the science and art of falconry may be ancient, but it hasn’t stood still. In fact, each of the owls is even fitted with a GPS gadget. He says: 

“I hope never to have to rely on it, but it’s a wise precaution – just in case one of them ever decided to make off with the rings!”

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Harrogate surveyors Kempston-Parkes expands offices

This story is sponsored by Kempston-Parkes Chartered Surveyors.

Harrogate’s foremost firm of chartered surveyors is bucking the property market trend and actively growing in response to continued healthy demand. 

While many in the sector are battling falling house prices, subdued trade and high interest rates, Kempston-Parkes Chartered Surveyors has seen no downturn in revenues and is investing in its future. 

To better accommodate its growing team, Kempston-Parkes has expanded into the ground and basement offices of its Princes Square premises after the former tenants moved out. 

Managing director Andrew Kempston-Parkes, who founded the firm from his home in 2011, said: 

“We’re growing as a firm, so when the lease became available, Kempston-Parkes saw it as a great opportunity to secure more space for our expanding team.

“It will give our admin team more room, and occupying the whole building provides us with an even better presence in Harrogate’s central business quarter.”

Mr Kempston-Parkes earned his professional qualifications from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in 1997 and founded Kempston-Parkes Chartered Surveyors 14 years later. The firm now employs 14 people from its offices in the heart of Harrogate. 

Find out more:

Kempston-Parkes Chartered Surveyors provide surveys and valuations for all purposes, including purchase, inheritance tax, capital gains tax, matrimonial assessments, boundary disputes and Land Registry plans

To find out more, visit our brand-new website, www.kempston-parkes.co.uk, or call us on 01423 229333.