Plan to turn central Harrogate offices into flats

A new planning application in Harrogate has further highlighted the trend towards town centre living. 

An applicant named as Govind wants to turn the offices on the first, second and third floors of 5 Cambridge Road into three flats.

Each apartment will take up a whole floor and have two double bedrooms – one of them with en suite shower room – as well as an open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area. 

The property stands between William Hill and the Cambridge Café, opposite The Den. 

Changing the use of town centre properties from class E – the term used by planners to denote commercial, business and service usage – to C3, residential, has become increasingly common in recent years.

In 2021, the government introduced a new permitted development right  to allow changes from E to C3 without planning permission in most cases.

The aim was to reverse the decline of town and city centres that have experienced an exodus of retailers and company offices in the wake of covid. The increase in online shopping has led to falling footfall on shopping streets and the trend for home-working has resulted in less demand for office space.

The decision on this latest application, which is being handled by agent Elite Dwellings Ltd, will determine whether the conversion falls under the permitted development rules or whether the applicant needs to give prior notification of development.

The consultation period on the application will run until Monday, April 8, and council planning officers aim to make a decision on the case by Friday, May 3. 

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Golfers gather at Rudding Park to meet the President

Golfers from clubs across the Harrogate district and beyond will converge on Rudding Park next month for special annual event organised by the area’s governing body. 

The Meet the President event held by the Harrogate & District Union of Golf Clubs (HDUGC) will see 120 golfers take on Rudding Park’s Hawtree Golf Course – the home course of 2024’s president Phil Kitching – before more than 150 guests attend an evening event at the Rudding Park Hotel. 

Founded in 1943, the HDUGC spans 13 golf clubs, spanning Otley and Ilkley up to Bedale, and Thirsk and Northallerton, as well as all the clubs in Harrogate and Knaresborough, and represents more than 9,000 members at a local, county and national level.    

Attendees at the event on Friday, April 26 will include the captains and lady captains of all 13 HDUGC clubs, as well as officials from five other Yorkshire inter-district unions. 

Matt Wharldall, of Rudding Park Golf Club, said: 

“The HDUGC runs 44 events throughout the year, and this one is the only one that is by invitation only.  

“This year’s Meet the President event promises to be the best yet. As well as the usual breakfast, golf, barbecue and President’s speech, this year we’ll be holding an auction and raffle to raise funds for junior golf.” 

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Council applies for cash from chewing gum firms

The drive to clean chewing gum off the county’s streets has taken a step forward following a decision by North Yorkshire Council. 

The local authority has agreed to apply for a grant of up to £27,500 from Keep Britain Tidy to purchase specialist chewing gum removal equipment. 

Keep Britain Tidy is administering the grants on behalf of the Chewing Gum Task Force, which brings together some of the UK’s major chewing gum producers, including Mars Wrigley, which makes Orbit and Extra, and Italian-Dutch firm Perfetti Van Melle, best known as the maker of Fruit-tella and Smint, in a partnership to remove gum litter from UK high streets and prevent future littering. 

Participating firms have pledged to invest up to £10 million over five years to achieve two objectives: cleaning up staining caused by gum and changing behaviour so that more people bin their gum. This is the third year that grants have been available, but this is the first time that North Yorkshire Council has applied for a grant from the fund.

The grants are supplemented by fully-funded gum litter prevention packages for each council, including targeted behaviour change signage and advice, designed and produced by social enterprise Behaviour Change. 

Last year, 55 councils across the UK benefitted from the grant fund, and the £1.65 million distributed helped clean more than 100 acres of urban streets.

By combining targeted street-cleansing with specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum, participating councils have seen reductions in gum littering of up to 80% in the first two months, with a reduced rate of gum littering still being observed after six months.

However bad North Yorkshire’s gum problem is, many other places have it far worse. Mexico City, for example, employs an army of full-time gum-cleaners, and New York – dubbed the “gum splotch capital of the world” by the New York Times – has been waging a well-publicised but losing war against discarded gum since the 1930s. Singapore even banned chewing gum in 1992, and people spitting it out onto the street risk fines of up to $1,000.

North Yorkshire Council’s decision to apply for the grant was only approved by the its Corporate Director, Environment and Assistant Director, Resources on Wednesday (March 27), but the deadline for grant applications to Keep Britain Tidy fell at midday today.

The Stray Ferret has asked North Yorkshire Council whether the deadline was met.

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What the UK’s top climate scientist wants from the next governmentRipon indies prepare for Easter bank holiday street party

Small independent businesses in Ripon are hoping to “blow the roof off” the city on Monday with an Easter bank holiday street party, organisers say. 

From 10am to 4pm, the day will feature artisan sellers, street food and live music, all designed to raise the city’s profile as a thriving cultural centre. 

The event will be part of the Totally Locally scheme and is supported by Ripon Business Improvement District (BID). All BID members will have £10 offers on the day. 

The event, which will be centred on the south side of Market Place, has been organised by Richard Hughes, owner of Manchega, the Spanish tapas restaurant on Kirkgate, and Paul Page, owner of street food vendor Squid & Tonic. 

Richard told the Stray Ferret: 

“Grassroots independent businesses like ours are at the sharp end of interacting with visitors, and we want to work together to raise the level of what Ripon has to offer. 

“Events like this really showcase the city and help to promote our great independent businesses. We’re looking to blow the roof off Ripon!” 

Manchega and Squid & Tonic will be joined on Monday by food providers including The Portly Pig, Prima, Mario’s Restaurant 27, Syrian Street Food and Jaflong, which last month was named Bangladeshi Restaurant of the Year at the National Curry Awards. 

The day’s soundtrack will be provided by a range of acts on two stages, including Time Machine, Knaresborough Vista Social Club, Jack & Amy, Mark Truelove, Freddie Cleary, Paul Astley, Ukrainian violinist Nadia Violin and Ripon’s own All For One Choir.  

Richard said: 

“We’re very excited. North Yorkshire Growth Hub have told us there are more independent businesses per head in Ripon than in any other town or city in the UK. We’re inviting the whole community to help us celebrate that.” 

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What the UK’s top climate scientist wants from the next government

There can’t be many people whose grasp of environmental issues is broader than Professor Piers Forster’s. Locally, he’s patron of Zero Carbon Harrogate and has campaigned against the expansion of Harrogate Spring Water’s bottling plant, but in his day job he operates at a different scale altogether.  

He’s professor of climate physics at the University of Leeds and director of the university’s Priestley Centre for Climate Futures, and since 2018 he’s also been interim chair of the government’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), representing the UK at the COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai last year. As a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), he was instrumental in getting the world to aim for a global warming limit of 1.5°C and helped persuade the UK government to adopt its Net Zero 2050 target.

One week he can be talking about saving saplings in Rotary Wood, the next he’ll be advising on global carbon reduction targets.

When the Stray Ferret spoke to him at his home in Harrogate, he’d just got back from Oslo; in a couple of months he’ll be off to Bonn, in December it’s Azerbaijan, and at some point he expects to go to Beijing for bilateral talks with the Chinese government’s advisers. 

The irony of someone with his brief jetting off around the world is not lost on him. He said: 

“I fly for work because I’m an international climate scientist, but I am now more conscious of whether I really have to get on an aeroplane. 

“I’m not at all perfect, but I have become more conscious of my green carbon footprint over time. We have an old diesel car. We could have an electric car, but I don’t drive the car at all, really. I drive it once every four months. 

“I walk into town, I take public transport to work at the University of Leeds and go down to Westminster on the train. I walk to the supermarket to get the exercise. 

“My wife’s Australian and going back there has a big carbon footprint, but I do not think that preventing people from going to see their family around the world or escape the wet, dreary winter… I think it’d be very difficult to say ‘You can’t do that’.” 

It is this sense of pragmatism – a practical approach rooted in an appreciation of the world as it is – that politicians across the spectrum value, and is perhaps why Prof Forster is still in post at the CCC six years after he was appointed to it temporarily. 

He also appears to be a glass-half-full kind of climate scientist, a tendency that always goes down better than doom-mongering, which inevitably implies reducing services or spending more money. 

He said: 

“We see wildfires in Portugal and Spain and we’re beginning to see them coming to this country now. We’ve had incredibly high temperatures in Canada, we had huge fires sweeping across California, and they shut down Silicon Valley for a bit. We’ve seen drought in China that meant they couldn’t supply water to their industries, so they had to shut them down for a bit too.

“If you look at the UK, we get off better than virtually any other country, and yet we’ve had by far the wettest winter ever recorded. Flooding is the greatest threat for us.

“But I’m an optimist. I think we have the ability to stop this. We’re not on track, of course, to hit our targets, but we’re also not completely off track. With concerted effort we can get back on track.

“We ought to be able to build more resilient infrastructure, and there’s opportunity now with the whole Net Zero transition thing, with brand-new grid and energy storage and offshore and onshore wind, or onshore solar. We do have the opportunity to try and make our towns and countryside more resilient.”

Photo of Harrogate resident Professor Piers Forster, who is interim chair of the government's Climate Change Committee, at the meeting in Incheon, South Korea, to approve the ​IPCC's 1.5C report in 2018.

Prof Piers Forster at the meeting in Incheon, South Korea, to approve the ​IPCC’s 1.5°C report in 2018.

While the benefits to the environment of developing a more sustainable economy are clear, he says that there are business opportunities that could further incentivise their development. He said: 

“It’s going to be challenging for the SMEs – they’re going to struggle with all the red tape, so we have to try and make it easy and support them to change. But for our other industries, especially the financial-type service industries, there are big opportunities, not only to support decarbonisation here, but also decarbonisation around the world, for example, we can reduce the cost of borrowing to build renewable energy in, say, Nigeria.” 

A prerequisite of Prof Forster’s CCC role is that he remains broadly apolitical, lest the credibility of his advice be compromised by perceived partiality.

But he does worry that, faced with the apparently conflicting priorities of high office, governments often tend to do far less than they say they do. For example, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, recently said that government plans to build new gas-fired power stations were in line with the recommendations of the CCC, which has said a “small amount” of gas generation without carbon capture is compatible with a decarbonised power system.

Prof Forster said:

“That’s technically correct, but it’s all about the quantities. We need to talk about the trajectories. In the 2035 timeframe he spoke about – that’s only a 10-year timeframe – we think there’ll be instances where we do need to get a little bit of electricity generation from gas. But if you look at the quantities of it, its tiny. It’s only about 1 or 2% of the country’s energy supply. So it does almost completely disappear by our 2035 target. After that time, we expect to go completely to renewables potentially, but that will take a bit more time. Basically, the amount of gas we need in this country is expected to decline, and decline very significantly.”

Taking the difficult decisions on climate change is not something every government is willing to do, but which one would be best placed – or most able – to do that is not something that Prof Forster, as arguably the country’s foremost climate scientist, can comment on. But he said: 

“I can’t say which party would be best for the environment, but I definitely would say that whichever party gets in, they have to get on with it.  

“What I’m a bit worried about currently is the things that need to be done. For example, we had an announcement just recently saying that they’re going to delay the clean heat market mechanism. This is to make air-source heat-pumps much more attractive compared with gas boilers, and just by delaying it and trying to call for one more consultation, it kicks the whole thing slightly into the long grass. Quite a lot of things are being kicked into the long grass.  

“Exactly the same thing is happening with bio-energy and carbon capture, with a big pipeline going into the North Sea.  

“On these very big decisions, we need to see a government that is bold enough to do it.” 

Those “very big decisions” span a wide range of policy areas. In agriculture, he’d like to see less farmland given over to cattle and more reforested, in housing he’d like all newbuilds to be fitted with an air-source heat-pump to head off the necessity of retrofitting them in 20 years’ time, and he’d like HS2 and the Trans-Pennine high-speed lines built too. He said: 

“Whatever big infrastructure the government can build that is sustainable is a really good thing to do.

“Remember all the fuss about building the Channel Tunnel, and how much it cost? We can’t survive without it now, and that is a really good thing for our economy, ultimately. These things are worth it.” 

He adds: 

“You have to come up with a solution that works for everyone. You have to be quite pragmatic, and I think the more we can be based on the evidence and the more we can try and take the political shenanigans out of it, I think that is ultimately the way to get to where you want to go.” 

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Business Q&A: Simon Taylor, Boroughbridge Marina

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

This week, we spoke to Simon Taylor, owner of Boroughbridge Marina.

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

We offer a full range of boating services, including equipment and boat sales, repairs, maintenance and mooring. Basically, anything to do with a boat.

What does it require to be successful in business? 

Flexibility is the biggest thing at the minute. And understanding – you’ve got to have understanding for each other’s needs, because not everybody wants the same thing.

What drives you to do what you do every day? 

I just enjoy running the business. I like looking after the customers and seeing people enjoying the marina. I like knowing that it’s their choice to be here, to use the marina in a capacity where they’re enjoying being here.

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

The weather. Over the summer we had some good weather, but through the winter flooding made life very tough. The marina is obviously at a low point geographically, and if it rains heavily up in Wensleydale, the Ure floods and we get it. That also prevents people from coming down here and getting to their boats.

A large part of what we do is online sales, and we’ve felt the pinch there too. Usually, people spend money on their boats through the winter so they’ll be ready for the summer, but this year it’s been very quiet and people are only just starting to turn their attention to their boats. I think it’s due to the financial situation – people are trying to save money where they can.

Also, when we came out of covid, we all wanted to get out and enjoy being outdoors, and lot of people bought boats. But that means that most of the people who were going to get one have now got one, and the market’s dried up a bit. There are a lot of boats standing idle in garages, without any money being spent on them.

Photo of Simon Taylor, owner of Boroughbridge Marina standing by a jetty with moored boats in the background.

Which other local firms do you most admire and why? 

Newby Hall always seem to have a good way of marketing their experiences. They’ve got a really varied, year-round range of activities on offer – I sometimes feel a little envious of that!

Who are the most inspiring local leaders? 

Anybody in the hospitality trade is inspirational to me, because it’s such a difficult business to operate in. It’s so up and down. I take my hat off to them.

What could be done locally to boost business? 

We get a 75% rate relief because we’re classed as a retail and leisure business. That’s a huge help, and I hope it continues.

Best and worst things about running a business from the Harrogate district? 

The best thing is the fact that we’ve got some really great customers. In fact, we’ve made some good friends through our customers. Also, I love the fact that people use our business for their pleasure. People enjoy being at the marina.

What are your business plans for the future? 

We’re looking at buying the marina from our landlord, the Canal & River Trust. They offered it to us for sale, and all I have to do is raise the funds. I’m hoping to have bought it within the next 12 months.

What do you like to do on your time off? 

My ‘go to’ is motorsport. I’ve got a little Peugeot 205 and do a bit of rally-driving and co-driving. The last one I did – and the biggest one to date – was a five-day event in November that took us through England, Scotland and Wales.

Best place to eat and drink locally? 

I like the Grantham Arms in Boroughbridge – the food there is very good. And in York, we often end up going back to the Cut & Craft, where they look after you really well, and serve superb steaks at sensible prices.

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Harrogate’s elite fighter preparing for his shot at the big timeHarrogate’s elite fighter preparing for his shot at the big time

From a little-noticed gym on Skipton Road in Harrogate, Nathaniel Kalogiannidis is preparing for the fight of his life.

He’s one on the UK’s best practitioners of Thai boxing – or muay thai – and he’s just three bouts away from winning a six-figure contract with ONE Championship, the world’s biggest fight promotion organisation. If you’re a little hazy on the muay thai hierarchy, think Premier League. 

When I meet him at the Kao Loi Gym, he’s relaxed after a week in Morocco, where he and his girlfriend went for a quick holiday following his last fight. Yet nine days after the bout in Manchester, his nose is still bruised and his knuckles still hurt, but he’s in good spirits, relentlessly cheerful and hitting the pads on full power. 

He lost that fight, but the winner – the UK’s number one at 79kg – broke his hand on Nathaniel’s forehead, so he’s out of contention and the Harrogate man has a second chance. He’s not going to let it pass. 

He said: 

“I’ll be grabbing this opportunity with both hands. If it works out the way that I’m hoping, I should be going to Canada.” 

Knaresborough muay thai fighter Nathaniel Kalogiannidis punches opponent Dan Bonner in the face during their bout in Manchester in February 2024.

Nathaniel Kalogiannidis punches opponent Dan Bonner during their recent bout in Manchester. Photo: Lamine Mersch.

His last fight was part of a four-man tournament where the winners were supposed to fight each other. They didn’t – “neither made it out” says Nathaniel – so that contest will happen next month at the O2 in London. The winner of that will head to Alberta, Canada in November. From there, the victor will be on a flight to Thailand. 

If he ever feels daunted by how far there is yet to go to achieve his dreams – which appears unlikely, given his easy confidence – he should perhaps reflect on how far he’s come. 

Born in Harrogate District Hospital, he spent his childhood in his father’s home country of Greece, where his dad introduced his “little hyperactive kid” to taekwondo. He won his first fight at the age of six and has been hooked ever since. 

Photo of Harrogate-based muay thai fighter Nathaniel Kalogiannidis at the Kao Loi gym on Skipton Road.

Nathaniel at the Kao Loi gym on Skipton Road in Harroagte.

He returned to Yorkshire and attended King James’s School in Knaresborough, always keeping up with the martial arts. Did he fight at school? He laughs: 

“I tried to stay out of trouble! I’m sure there are some teachers who can remember a few instances. 

“My first coach, who I had in Greece, was always encouraging us not to get into confrontations outside of the gym, so it’s something I’ve tried to stay away from. But as a teenage boy, I feel like that’s sometimes a little inevitable.” 

Does he regard himself as a Harrogate fighter, or a Knaresborough fighter? Yorkshire, English, or Greek? He said: 

“Harrogate, Yorkshire – I don’t want to sound too territorial, to be honest! I want to represent my team and the people who believe in me. That’s who I represent.” 

Photo of Knaresborough muay thai fighter Nathaniel Kalogiannidis kicking opponent Dan Bonner in the stomach.

Photo: Lamine Mersch.

He’s now a professional fighter and at the age of 25, he jokes that he’s “still got about 10 more years of punch-ups” in him. His record is 10 wins and five losses, but he says those don’t bother him. He ranks eighth in the UK at middleweight and his trajectory is ever upward. 

He said: 

“I pride myself on not cherry-picking opponents. I’ve never said no to any man who’s been offered to me in a fight. My first professional fight was against the UK number five ranked K1 fighter. All of my opponents have gone on to fight at international level or world level, so the guys that I’m getting beaten by – and it’s not by a lot – are very respectable opponents. 

“I’ve never said no to anybody, because I’m not interested in polishing my record. I’m interested in being the guy who will just get in there, fight anybody and always make it an entertaining fight. Wins and losses don’t really matter to me too much.” 

That may be so, but it doesn’t mean he’s not deadly serious about getting to Canada and then Thailand. He knows who he’s up against and he’s training hard, with between 10 and 12 sessions a week – two a day, six days a week, each an hour-and-a-half or two-and-a-half hours long. He said: 

“We prefer quality over quantity. I don’t really need really long hours to be training – it’s just how good I can be for five three-minute rounds. That’s all that matters in a fight.” 

Those 15 minutes are intense. The lead-up to a fight typically takes months, so there’s a lot of time to think about it. Nathaniel said: 

“It’s really interesting, because the emotions up to the fight are never consistent. For a lot of fights I’ve been really nervous, about a month out. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions – it’s so inconsistent. Up, down, up, down. And then you get to walk into the ring, and there’s still a little bit of that anxiety and right before I walk out, my music comes on and everything leaves. It just goes and I’m just full of confidence. And I’m completely zoned into I have to do.

“It’s quite a beautiful thing for me because my brain’s quite full-on and I’ve got a lot of internal chatter, but to know that for however long the fight is, all I have to think about is me and the person stood in front of me. I don’t have to think about anything else. It sounds mental, but for me that’s a really, really peaceful place.”

It may feel peaceful, but that’s not how it looks. Muay thai is known as the ‘Art of Eight Limbs’ because it allows the use of eight “weapons” – the hands, the elbows, the knees, and the legs/feet – and the damage they can do can be spectacular. When Nathaniel’s last opponent broke his hand on his skull, the two of them were covered in his blood, and he needed seven staples in his forehead. 

Photo of Knaresborough muay thai fighter Nathaniel Kalogiannidis closing his eyes in disappointment as the referee announces opponent Dan Bonner as the winner of their recent bout in Manchester.

Nathaniel lost his last fight, but the winner broke his hand and will be unable to progress. Photo: Lamine Mersch.

Little wonder that fighters study each other intently to avoid the traps. In training, their sparring partners aim to imitate the fighting style of their next opponent, so that all the correct responses can be filed away and incorporated into the game plan. The last thing a fighter wants is to have to think too hard when in the ring. Nathaniel said: 

“You put it all into your autopilot so you don’t have to think. I’ve had times where I have been really thinking and you fall behind. You don’t have any momentum – it’s gone. Gone. It’s like a meditation – you can’t afford to be stuck on any single thought.” 

He says the worst feeling is finishing a fight and thinking he could have done more. It only happened once and he’s never let it happen again. He said: 

“I know for a fact that I leave absolutely everything in the ring. I give absolutely everything in my preparation. Anything I can possibly do, anything that I can control, I do 100%. I don’t do half measures.” 

But then again, the other fighters are doing the same thing, so is there ever bad blood? Trash talking has become de rigueur in boxing, so is it the same in muay thai? He said: 

“Muay thai is a much more traditional, respectful support, and I’ve always had respect between me and my opponents.  

“It doesn’t always mean that I’ve liked the guys who I’ve fought, before or after, but they’ve never been anything but respectful after the fight. A lot of the time it might not even be a personal thing, but when you have the same dream as somebody else, it’s very hard to get along with them. We both want the same thing. We’ve both put a lot into what we’re doing. 

“But I’ve met some of the nicest people I’ve ever met through combat sports. To go through 15 minutes of doing what we do in a ring to then hug it out covered in blood and have a drink, which I have done with a lot of my opponents – a drink and a chinwag after – is really, really quite a beautiful thing, I think.” 

That feeling is, of course, intensified by victory – winning, he says, is like an addictive drug. He said: 

“It’s an incredible feeling getting your hand raised. I wish I could bottle it up and give it to people. But I can’t – it’s the product of giving something 100%, chasing something that you love, and coming out the other side victorious. It’s got to be one of the best feelings in life.” 

Whether he wins, loses or draws at the O2 next month – he says “When I win” – there’s no chance that Harrogate and Knaresborough’s hometown challenger will throw in the towel on his career anytime soon. Had he lost that first bout aged six, he would still have kept fighting. He said: 

“I’ve lost loads of times and there have been times when people have told me to stop, and I could have just quit and done something else as a career. But I’ve never wanted to do anything else.

“I really feel like this is my calling and this is what I was put on this planet to do. And to use my platform to help and influence other people through combat sports. So, one way or another I’d have found myself back inside of a ring!”

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Trading Hell: ‘Report crime so we can cut crime’, says BID manager

This is the fifth in our Trading Hell series of features investigating anti-social behaviour and crime in Harrogate town centre.

All this week, our Trading Hell series of features has been putting the problems faced by central Harrogate businesses under the microscope.

We’ve found out what town-centre traders feel about anti-social behaviour, shoplifting and threats to staff through our unprecedented survey.

We’ve taken a deep dive into the official data to find out what the stats have to say about crime levels in the heart of our town.

We’ve heard from Harrogate Homeless Project about the limits constraining the charity sector’s response to rough sleeping and street drinking.

And we’ve heard from a senior police officer about what North Yorkshire Police are doing to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour and to restore public confidence. 

But could there be a better way? Matthew Chapman certainly thinks so. He’s manager of Harrogate BID (business improvement district), and for the last couple of years he’s been leading the charge for the introduction of a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). He told the Stray Ferret: 

“At the moment, the police are on the street and know there’s a problem, but they don’t have the powers to be able to do anything about it. A PSPO would give them the tools to be able to do that.” 

Introduced in 2014, PSPOs prohibit specified behaviours and offences from precisely delineated areas. Harrogate introduced one in August 2016 and extended it a year later for another three years. It was tailored to clamp down on street drinking inside the railway and bus stations, Victoria Shopping Centre, and the Victoria and Jubilee multi-storey car-parks. Enforcement officers had the power to ask people to stop drinking in a public place and ‘surrender’ their alcohol. Refusal to hand it over could result in a fixed penalty notice of up to £100. 

But that order expired in 2020 and the pandemic lockdown meant there was no need to renew it, so there hasn’t been one in place for the past four years. 

A new one is long overdue, according to Matthew Chapman, and an overwhelming majority of central Harrogate businesses appear to agree. Our Trading Hell survey found that 92% of town-centre traders support the introduction of a PSPO.

Graphic showing that 92% of town-centre traders would like to see a public spaces protection order (PSPO) introduced in Harrogate.

Lifestyle choice?

Who is to blame for all the problems that traders face – including anti-social behaviour, street drinking, persistent begging and shoplifting – is a simple question with a complex answer. According to Matthew Chapman, there are several different kinds of offender, but most of the problems are caused by two groups: “homegrown” street drinkers and gangs from out of town.

Homelessness. Photo: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr

Photo: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr.

He said: 

“We know of people who have got addiction problems, people who have had some kind of trauma in their life – whether it’s in childhood or more recently – and they’ve ended up in a really difficult situation as a result. 

“These people deserve the right to support, and health, and care, and there’s a lot of help out there for them. We’ve got Harrogate Homeless Project that can provide counselling, GPs, vets, food and showers; we’ve got North Yorkshire Horizons, which offers support with addiction; we’ve got the rough sleeper coordinators at the council; we have the No Second Night Out provision that allows people access to a hotel room for the night when the temperature’s 2°C or below.   

“If all those avenues have been explored, and this person continues to shoplift, continues to perform anti-social behaviour, continues to be a nuisance to society, then we believe the gap is in policing. At this moment in time, those people aren’t breaking the law – and that’s why we’ve been calling for a PSPO to be introduced.” 

Does this mean he agrees with former Home Secretary Suella Braverman that rough sleeping is a “lifestyle choice”? He said: 

“Some people have chosen that way of life for so long that adapting back into what we would call a ‘normal’ way of living is difficult. We know, for example, that we have a rough sleeper in Harrogate who doesn’t want a council property and prefers living on the streets – prefers that community around him that he trusts. 

“Whether it’s a ‘lifestyle choice’… you can pick that wording apart, but we certainly know some people who do choose to live that way rather than taking a local authority housing option.” 

People-trafficking gangs

The other main group of people causing problems for town-centre businesses is driven by money rather than personal problems. Some come to beg, others to shoplift, and they are far more flexible in their approach, according to Mr Chapman. 

He said: 

“We know of national people-trafficking gangs that come in and target places like Harrogate. One of the challenges is that when the police get on top of some of these really high-level groups in a certain area, they swiftly move to a different area, but the information-sharing isn’t there from police constabulary to police constabulary. 

“It’s similar to County Lines [the city-based networks that traffic drugs to outlying areas] – once one group is getting tackled a bit more, they’ll literally just move from North Yorkshire to West Yorkshire, or from Greater London to Birmingham, or from Manchester to Glasgow, and it is quite high-level organised crime groups that do these things.” 

The bands of professional beggars follow the crowds, he said, often moving seasonally or from event to event, and can make a lot of money:

“There’s a known group of individuals in Harrogate that the police, the council and charities are working with, but that can change daily, weekly, depending on what’s happening in town. 

“If the Great Yorkshire Show is on, that can be quite ‘productive’ for certain groups of people, and when the races are on in York, sometimes we’ll see a dip in begging in Harrogate, because York will be the place to go for those people.  

“Christmas is really well delivered in Harrogate, and we sometimes get an increase, because there’s footfall, there’s spend, there are people feeling a little bit more generous. So it’s quite targeted, where these people operate.” 

Photo of a man begging outside Boots in Harrogate town centre.

As reported in yesterday’s Trading Hell instalment, we put these assertions to Chief Inspector Simon Williamson of North Yorkshire Police, who told us: 

“I don’t think we have a specific, identified problem of people targeting the Harrogate area – there’s no evidence to support that – but there are anecdotes to suggest that people have come on occasion.” 

Told of Ch Insp Williamson’s response, Mr Chapman said: 

“We don’t have access to the level of data that the Chief Inspector would, and it would be really interesting to see where that information has come from. 

“But our knowledge has come from being on the ground, day to day, speaking to business owners, speaking to security guards, speaking to the charities. They know what’s going on.” 

‘Reporting crime is vital’

Whatever the problems are in Harrogate town centre, and no matter who is causing them, many are hoping that Project Spotlight, the initiative launched last week to step up police patrols in the town centre, will help tackle them. 

Mr Chapman also has high hopes for the new town centre support officer that Harrogate BID is currently recruiting. Their job will be to support the police, council and charities, acting as a “middleman” to gather evidence and share information. 

They will also be useful in making sure that all crime is reported – a vital measure if a PSPO is to be introduced. In order for North Yorkshire Council to be able to apply for a PSPO, national guidelines dictate that crime figures must demonstrate its necessity. But that’s a level that central Harrogate does not yet reach – officially, at least. 

Mr Chapman said: 

“The number of actual reports of crime [in central Harrogate] is really low, but the picture on the ground is very different. But if people don’t report the crimes, the crime figures will never be high enough for us to be able to get that PSPO.

“It’s ironic really. I want crime to go down – as everyone does – but I want the figures to go up, just so we’ve got a case when speaking to the police.

“We really cannot stress enough that people need to report crimes, no matter how low their value, because the only way that we’re going to make change is by getting those crime figures up to make the Chief Inspectors listen.”

Case study: How a PSPO helped cut crime and anti-social behaviour in Lincoln

Lincoln has sought to use PSPOs to tackle problems similar to those experienced in Harrogate town centre. 

City of Lincoln Council has used the powers over the last nine years to prohibit various kinds of anti-social behaviour, which council leaders, police and other agencies feel have plagued the city. 

They range from banning street drinking in the city centre, to prohibiting substance abuse and “loitering” in local car parks. 

Photo of part of Lincoln city centre, where the council has introduced a public spaces protection order (PSPO).

Lincoln city centre. Photo: Lincolnian (Brian)/Flickr.

The city’s first ever PSPO was introduced in 2015. It banned the possession and consumption of “legal highs” and alcohol within a defined area of the city centre, and allowed police and council staff to either force people to hand over those substances and move on, or issue a fine if they refused to do so. The order has been renewed every three years and is due for review this year. 

A separate PSPO covering three city-centre multi-storey car-parks was first enforced in October 2020. It banned drinking, drug-taking and “congregating in groups of two or more people”, as well as public urination, smoking and any activity likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any other person. 

Figures provided by the council at a meeting to discuss its extension last September show that the PSPO had its desired effect. Incidents of drug-taking dropped from 107 in the three years prior to the order to 35 over the three years the order was in force. 

Over the same periods, public order offences dropped only slightly, from 189 to 150. Nevertheless, council officials felt this modest drop justified extending the PSPO for another three years. 

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