A new chocolate and coffee cafe is to open in Harrogate town centre next month.

The Chocolate Works, which already has cafes in Clitheroe and Skipton, will open on Station Parade.

It will be situated in the vacant unit that was intended to house the ill-fated vegan restaurant Vertigo, which went out of business a year ago before its Harrogate eatery opened.

Signs advertising the new venture on Station Parade have gone up.

Owner Guy Middleton, who opened the Clitheroe store in 2017 followed by Skipton three years later, said the Harrogate cafe will employ about 10 staff and open on March 25.

Mr Middleton, who entered the chocolate business about a decade ago after a career in marketing and communications that included a spell in California, promised the cafe would be “delicious, fresh and fun” in a “space to come and enjoy yourself”.

The Chocolate Works cafes serve predominantly Belgian chocolate dishes, including hot chocolate, as well as loose chocolate that can be taken away.

They also stock a wide range of coffees and speciality teas plus waffles, ice cream and milkshakes.

Read more:

• Harrogate’s new vegan restaurant venture collapses
• Graveleys fish and chip shop serves first customers after 1,000 days away

Nidderdale Pool and Leisure Centre in Pateley Bridge has been renamed Nidderdale Leisure and Wellness Centre.

Harrogate Borough Council, which runs the facility, also revealed today The Hydro in Harrogate and Knaresborough Pool will be known as Harrogate Leisure and Wellness Centre and Knaresborough Leisure and Wellness Centre when they re-open.

It is part of a move to rebrand council-run leisure facilities in the Harrogate district with a greater focus on community health and wellbeing.

Mark Tweedie, managing director of Brimhams Active, which is the council-controlled company that operates the facilities, said:

“Through our new pioneering strategy Brimhams has committed to revitalising and reinventing conventional leisure services to focus on what people want and need to optimise their health and wellbeing whatever their starting point.

“Changing the names of our facilities symbolises this, and this investment is another example of the serious commitment to support the communities we serve.”

Signs have been installed at Nidderdale Leisure and Wellness Centre showing the new name.

The new signage

The rebranding has already started at other facilities in the Harrogate district, including the Jack Laugher Leisure and Wellness Centre, Fairfax Wellbeing Hub, Knaresborough Wellbeing Hub and Jennyfield Styan Wellbeing Hub.

Harrogate Leisure and Wellness Centre and Knaresborough Leisure and Wellness Centre are due to reopen this year after multi-million pound investments.

Read more:

• Further delay to installation of temporary gym at Ripon leisure centre
• Harrogate council company to run leisure centres in Selby

Pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason will make her Harrogate debut this month – three years after her cellist brother, Sheku, accompanied by sister Isata, performed in the town.

The 20-year-old will perform work by Shostakovich, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Prokofiev as part of the Harrogate International Sunday Series on February 26. She will also give  an exclusive performance of Florence Price’s Fantasie Negre.

Hosted by Harrogate International Festivals and staged in the Old Swan Hotel, the Sunday Series coffee concerts have been an annual fixture on Harrogate’s classical music calendar since 1991.

Ms Kanneh-Mason, the fifth of seven musically-gifted siblings and the third to establish herself as a soloist, is a former Classic FM rising star and a keyboard category finalist in BBC Young Musician 2018.

Read more:

• Harrogate district festival launches £7,000 search for classical singers
• New professional choir based in Ripon to give local concert

Discussing her Harrogate appearance, Ms Kanneh-Mason said:

“This programme has a large range of repertoire – from Prokofiev and Beethoven to Shostakovich.

“The individual pieces in the Romeo and Juliet and the Estampes show the importance of story-telling in music, which is something I am drawn to.”

Her brother and sister were the last performers to appear at Harrogate International Festivals in 2020 before lockdown devastated the arts world, and Jeneba admits it was not an easy time for her.

Jeneba’s programme comprises of Shostakovich’s Prelude and Fugue in D major; Prokofiev’s 10 Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75; Mendelssohn’s Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14 in E major; Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, and Florence Price’s Fantasie Negre No.1 in E minor.

Roadworks that have caused lengthy delays near Harrogate for the last month are due to end tomorrow.

Four-way traffic lights were installed at the roundabout near the Curious Cow at Oaker Bank, Killinghall to allow Express Utilities to put in utility infrastructure for a nearby housing development.

The roadworks were due to continue until Friday but Matthew Ross, operations director at Express Utilities, said today:

“I am able to confirm that Express Utilities have progressed with our planned work at this location ahead of schedule.

“We are now due to complete and remove all of our traffic management set up by Monday 13th February.”

Read more:

• Temporary traffic lights near Killinghall set to last another four weeks
• Free Saturday parking to return in Harrogate after ‘technical error’

A Harrogate bar has applied to extend its operating hours until 6.30am on Fridays and Saturdays.

Best Bar opened a year ago next to Santorini Express on Parliament Street and already describes itself as a bar and night club.

It is a wine and cocktail bar in the evenings and on Fridays and Saturdays also offers music and DJs from 9.30pm.

In March last year, it successfully applied to Harrogate Borough Council to extend its operating hours from 11.30pm to 4am.

It has now applied to the council to further extend the hours on Fridays and Saturdays until 6.30am.

A spokesman at Best Bars told the Stray Ferret the recent demise of nearby Viper Rooms meant it was the “only bar in Harrogate with proper nightclub music and DJs” and many people did not want to go home at 4am.

He said the club had already successfully trialled some temporary extensions until 6.30am and they proved successful because people were able to party longer and there were fewer problems caused by everyone having to leave at a time when many weren’t ready to do so. He added:

“It made a huge difference and was a great success all round.”

Last month Mojo in Harrogate applied to extend its opening hours until 6.30am as the Harrogate late night scene continues to evolve following the closure of Viper Rooms.

Read more:

• Harrogate Mojo applies to extend opening hours until 6.30am
• Harrogate nightclub Viper Rooms closes suddenly

The company behind plans to transform Harrogate’s Crescent Gardens with a two-storey extension has said it still plans to go ahead with the scheme.

Harrogate-based property developers Impala Estates plans to turn the building into offices, a rooftop restaurant and a gym. But there is still no timeframe on when it will happen.

Impala bought the former Harrogate Borough Council headquarters for £4 million in 2020.

The council, which vacated the building in 2016, approved Impala’s plans in May last year. But since then work has not started and there has been no further update.

The Stray Ferret asked Impala why the redevelopment had been delayed and what the latest timeframe was, and also whether its plans had been revised.

James Hartley, a director of Impala, said:

“Planning was granted with conditions attached in which myself and my design team are working through with the council.

“The plans for the development have not been revised since planning.”

David Hartley, a director of Impala, told a council meeting last year the plans would bring “significant public benefits” to the town, “which include bringing an empty building back into use and creating quality office space”.

Crescent Gardens was vacated by the council when it moved into its Knapping Mount headquarters in 2017.

Read more:

• Plans in to transform Crescent Gardens into offices
• Harrogate’s Otley Road to be dug up again

Glasshouses Cricket Club has issued a plea for new players amid fears it could fold after more than 100 years.

Glasshouses was a founder member of the Nidderdale league in 1894 and has won the league on 19 occasions. But it currently only has five members ready and able to play for the new season in April.

It now has only a short time left to sign up enough players to show the league that it has the strength to fulfil fixtures. If it can’t, it will have to stand down and more than a century of village cricket will come to an end.

The club, which is in the fifth division of the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League, has good facilities and plays on a well-maintained ground in a peaceful setting two miles from Pateley Bridge.

Kites swoop overhead and the River Nidd flows by the southern boundary line.

The club’s picturesque setting

Committee member Stephen Boyden said:

“If you are a cricketer who wants friendly though competitive cricket, get in touch with the club now and save them from the saddest of endings.

“You don’t have to live in the area to join the club, all ages are welcome from 12 years old, and both men and women are welcome to join too.”

If you are interested in joining or want to find out more, contact Graham on 07740 786588.

Read more:

• 24 bus from Pateley Bridge to Harrogate saved
• Killinghall Cricket Club applies to build new two-storey pavilion

The beeping sound of lorries and diggers reversing fills the air. Mud covers the street. Planning application notices hang like baubles from lamp posts.

Welcome to Kingsley Road, a once quiet rural area on the edge of Harrogate that has become a permanent building site.

Some 600 homes are at various stages of construction in the nearby area. Work started years ago and shows no sign of ending.

On Tuesday, Harrogate Borough Council‘s planning committee is expected to approve a sixth development – Persimmon’s application for 162 homes in a field on Kingsley Drive. Some locals plan to demonstrate at the council offices in the hope of persuading the Conservative-controlled planning committee to reject the scheme.

Gary Tremble, pictured where more development is due to take place.

Gary Tremble, who lives on Kingsley Road, is at the forefront of local resistance. He is a member of Kingsley Ward Action Group, which was set up in 2019 because “we soon realised we needed to work together”.

By his own admission, Mr Tremble is a “pain in the arse campaigner” who bombards councillors of all political colours with emails complaining about uncovered lorries, the state of the roads, road safety and anything else that concerns people who live in the area. He says some Greens and Liberal Democrats “have been helpful” but the bulldozers keep coming. He says:

“There’s a lot of anger on this street and it will get worse if people keep ignoring us.

“I have to take time off otherwise I get angry all the time. But then you walk out the door and see another truck going past at 40mph.”

The proposed road closure leading to Bogs Lane

The homes are being built in a residential area off the already-congested Knaresborough Road. North Yorkshire County Council has now applied to block the through-route on to Bogs Lane, which some welcome on the grounds it will reduce local traffic. Others say it will just drive more vehicles on to Knaresborough Road.

All you can see in the Kingsley area is houses.

Mr Tremble says:

“The main issue is there is no infrastructure. You can’t build several hundred homes with no community centre, dentist or shop.”

He says if the Persimmon development is approved and more green land between Starbeck and Bilton is concreted over, many people will have had enough and look to move.

Read more:

• Kingsley residents call for halt to new housing decisions
• Council recommends controversial Kingsley Farm homes be approved

Other local people feel equally strongly. Darren Long says:

“It literally feels like we’re given more bad news on a daily basis. It’s now seven years since construction started on the first Barratt’s development and it shows no signs of stopping. It’s so sad that this has been allowed to happen.

“We were so excited to move here in 2017. It’s miserable living here now. Living with the constant construction traffic, proposed road closures, one way systems and the horrific traffic.”

Peter Nolan, who has lived in the Kingsley area for 49 years, says Harrogate Borough Council “should be ashamed of the state they have let this once quiet area get into”. He adds:

“I’ve never ever in all my years had to queue half way along Kingsley Road in a morning but now I quite often spend 20 minutes trying to get out onto Knaresborough Road.”

Resident Dee Downton added:

“I am more concerned about the effect of the normal day-to-day basics that impact the everyday person getting to their destinations or commute to work, the impact on air quality because it’s just one constant traffic jam, the impact when ambulances can’t get through, the danger to pedestrians crossing because a gap in the traffic is seen and a vehicle acts quickly but fails to see someone crossing the road.”

Developers have targeted Kingsley because the land is allocated for development on the Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which outlines where development can take place,

They say the schemes bring much-needed housing to Harrogate.

But those living in the area are less enthusiastic. Anonymous posters appeared on the street recently urging locals to legally double park on the pavement to prevent developers’ lorries from passing.

Mr Tremble says such anger is understandable because feelings are reaching “boiling point”.

Andrew Hart, a postmaster in nearby Starbeck, sympathises and says the action group is “doing their best to right a massive wrong”, adding:

“I am appalled with the never ending chaos created by the developments and road closures along Kingsley. The whole infrastructure was never designed for this number of houses.

“We have ended up with serious health and safety issues, lack of local resources and a gridlocked Knaresborough Road and Starbeck.”

Tuesday’s planning committee can be watched live on Harrogate Borough Council’s YouTube page here.

Up to 1,000 Nidderdale residents, businesses and visitors are set to receive 4G phone coverage thanks to a new mast at Scar House reservoir.

The EE mast, which Yorkshire Water installed in partnership with BT, was erected primarily to enable water quality to be monitored remotely.

Yorkshire Water, which owns the reservoir, has installed monitors on water courses feeding Scar House.

Data transmitted by the mast will allow scientists and engineers to proactively select the best available water sources for transfer to its water treatment works.

Weather, temperature, and the condition of the moorland can impact the quality of water sources, as they can influence things like the amount of peat found in the water.

Managing water at its source is a more cost effective and environmentally friendly approach than traditional energy intensive and expensive “end of pipe” treatment solutions.

The better the water quality is at source, the less energy it takes to process at the treatment works, reducing Yorkshire Water’s carbon footprint.

Ted Rycroft, Yorkshire Water’s product and process manager, said:

“Water coming out of customers taps will continue to be the high quality that it always has been – the key change here is that the water coming into the treatment works will be of higher quality, and therefore require less treatment.

“That helps us to keep costs down for our customers and our operational emissions to a minimum, while maintaining our high standards of water quality.”

Ashish Gupta, BT’s managing director for corporate and public sector, hailed the project as “the perfect example of using tech to work smarter – benefiting both local people and the environment”.

Read more:

• Pateley Bridge road finally reopens after landslip repairs
• 24 bus from Pateley Bridge to Harrogate saved

Harrogate’s Otley Road is to be dug up for the second time in just over a year.

Work is due to start on Monday, February 20 and last for two weeks subject to external factors such as weather.

North Yorkshire County Council contractors spent three months creating the first phase of the Otley Road cycleway between September and December 2021.

The same stretch of road is now set to be disturbed again to allow the firm City Fibre to install fibre optic cables that will enable people to receive full fibre-enabled broadband services.

City Fibre is nearing the end of a £46 million upgrade of broadband connectivity in Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon. Otley Road will be the last area to be completed in Harrogate.

The county council was due to begin remedial work early this year on cycleway design faults and defects highlighted by residents and Harrogate District Cycle Action.

But a report to councillors for a meeting tomorrow says:

“In May 2022 the fibre optic network company City Fibre contacted North Yorkshire County Council with a request to install fibre optic cables down the full length of the newly constructed cycleway.

“We have negotiated with City Fibre to reinstate the full width of the cycleway at their expense. We will therefore carry out our outstanding remedial works once City Fibre have installed their apparatus.”

Read more:

• Confirmed: second phase of Harrogate’s Otley Road cycle route scrapped
• Plans confirm football pitches will be lost in 200-home Harrogate scheme

Kim Johnston, City Fibre area manager, said in a press release sent out previously that the firm will repair defects at its own expense when it makes good the road. She said:

“We are working closely with North Yorkshire County Council in this area as we understand that the footways on Otley Road have undergone recent resurfacing.

“With the council’s agreement, as part of City Fibre’s essential development works, the footways will be restored, including repairs to defects that North Yorkshire County Council were due to carry out.”