Hundreds of fish are believed to have died in a pollution incident at Oak Beck, Harrogate.

The cause of the incident, which occurred at Oak Beck Park, close to the retail park, is not yet known.

A Yorkshire Water spokesperson said:

“Our teams, along with the Environment Agency, have conducted initial investigations after reports of a pollution at Oak Beck over the weekend.

“Our tests have indicated the substance entering the beck is not sewage. We are continuing to investigate and will also be visiting local businesses to try and trace the source.”

The beck flows into the River Nidd.

Councillor Paul Haslam, who represents Harrogate Old Bilton on Harrogate Borough Council and Bilton and Nidd Gorge on North Yorkshire County Council, informed Yorkshire Water of the incident after being notified by a resident yesterday.

Cllr Haslam posted some images, which we have published, that were sent to him by the resident.

They show fish floating on the surface and the water looking extremely brown.

Cllr Haslam said the only way to get over the seriousness and upsetting nature of what had happened was to quote the person who reported it, who said:

• Sickness outbreak prompts concerns River Nidd is not safe for swimming
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About 100 floral tributes to the Queen have now been placed at Harrogate war memorial.

People began laying flowers shortly after the Queen’s death was announced on Thursday.

The number has grown steadily since, with many accompanied by moving handwritten notes, some written by children.

Yesterday, Andrew Jones, the MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, signed the book of condolence at St. Peter’s Church in Harrogate.

Mr Jones had previously attended the choral matins special memorial service for the Queen.

St. Peter’s is open from 8:30am-6-30pm every day during the period of mourning where there is a book of condolence that people can write in.

Also, on Wednesday and Friday at 12noon there will be a short act of prayer.

Andrew Jones signs the book of condolences at St Peter’s Church. Credit: Steve Martin

At County Hall in Northallerton, councillor Margaret Atkinson, who is chair of the council and represents Masham and Fountains, read the local proclamation of King Charles III yesterday.

Today, the local proclamation of King Charles III was read by Cllr Margaret Atkinson, Chair of the Council, on the steps of County Hall in Northallerton.

God save the King. pic.twitter.com/AKgSitiNlh

— North Yorkshire Council (@northyorksc) September 11, 2022

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Countdown’s Susie Dent, the 8th Earl of Harewood David Lascelles, Antiques Roadshow expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan, veteran broadcaster Peter Snow and former president of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, are amongst the guest speakers headlining at the 10th anniversary year of Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival 2022.

They will be joined over the course of the four days by British philosopher and author Prof AC Grayling, The Great British Dig’s Dr Chloe Duckworth, writer and theatre maker Stella Duffy, political journalist Otto English, and novelist and playwright Stephen May.

Produced by Harrogate International Festivals, the literary event is being held between Thursday, October 20 and Sunday, October 23 at the town’s Crown Hotel.

This is the tenth year that Harrogate law firm Raworths has been the headline sponsor.

Beginning with a literary lunch starring lexicographer Susie Dent, best known for her role in Dictionary Corner on Channel 4’s Countdown and 8 Out of 10 Cat Does Countdown, the festival continues with a programme of author interviews, panel discussions, book signings, a yoga workshop and a pop-up Waterstones bookshop.

Other speakers adding their name to the line up include political news correspondent Carole Walker and BBC Radio 4 producer and journalist Phil Tinline, who will join a panel to discuss what’s next for British politics.

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One of the country’s leading psychotherapists and author of Sunday Times Best Seller Ten to Zen, Owen O’Kane will be joined by psychiatrist and psychotherapist Penelope Campling to examine how covid has affected our mental health.

Harrogate International Festivals chief executive Sharon Canavar said:

“Over the years, this four-day event has grown in stature and importance, and has rightly claimed its place as one of the country’s leading literature festivals. As ever, we are incredibly grateful to our sponsors, Raworths solicitors, who have been our partner in this event for a decade.”

Simon Morris, from Raworths solicitors, said:

“This is one of the premier literary festivals in the UK, and we are delighted once again to have our name associated with this wonderful four-day celebration of books and writing.”

Further information about the festival is available here.

A mother in Pateley Bridge has raised concerns about the cost of getting children to sixth form on the bus.

Sariah Broadhead’s son attends St. Aidan’s Church of England High School in Harrogate.

Nidderdale High School, the only secondary school in Pateley Bridge, does not have a sixth form so her son has to travel for his education.

Ms Broadhead has to pay £660 a year for a bus ticket — something she has had to do for her three other children in the past.

The price of the ticket has become an increasing concern as the cost of living crisis bites. She said:

“With everything going up, with the price, everything is really high.”

Children up to Year 11 are entitled to free travel to their nearest school if they live more than a three-mile walk away.

Pupils can use commercial buses or special services provided by North Yorkshire County Council.

However, although the age for leaving education has increased to 18, no provision has been made for free school transport for over 16s.

Parents can buy a yearly ticket from the county council but this also costs £650 for the year.

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Sariah Broadhead has to pay £660 for her son’s bus pass (photo: Sariah Broadhead).

This has proved to be a problem in Nidderdale because there are no school buses into Harrogate.

Instead, Ms Broadhead’s son has to take the Harrogate Bus Company’s 24 service.

The company does not provide annual tickets for the route, forcing her to buy a pass which covers the whole of the north of England.

Mrs Broadhead believes the situation has left her “in a catch-22”. She added:

“This is the only option we have. Things are getting tighter.”

In response, a Harrogate Bus Company spokesman said:

“We welcome customer feedback on our ticket range, and fully understand justifiable concerns about the cost of living and financial pressures being experienced across the country.

“The annual version of our Gold pass for under-19s and students represents very good value, especially as it gives unlimited travel throughout our entire network from Manchester and Preston to Scarborough and Whitby, for the equivalent of less than £12.70 a week.”

Business Breakfast is sponsored by Harrogate law firm Truth Legal. 

Keane Duncan, the councillor responsible for major transport schemes such as the Harrogate Station Gateway and the Otley Road cycle route, is to meet business leaders in Harrogate on Monday.

Cllr Duncan succeeded Don Mackenzie as North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for highways and transportation this year.

He will talk about his vision for transport in and around Harrogate at Harrogate District Chamber of Trade‘s monthly meeting at the Cedar Court Hotel.

Doors open at 5.30pm for open networking with the main meeting commencing at 6.15pm.

The meeting will also hear presentations from three chamber businesses about carbon reduction.

Paul White, from Auditel, will talk about his firm’s journey to carbon neutrality.

Sarah Jones, from Full Circle Funerals, will explain how her business attained Corp B status – a certification which verifies a business is meeting high standards of social and environmental performance.

Danny Wild, Harrogate College principal and a member of Harrogate District Climate Change Coalition, will speak about its work on retrofit to support businesses.

Chamber chief executive David Simister said:

“I’ll also be updating members on the letter I sent to the district’s MPs about the energy price crisis, as well as introducing our newest members and inviting members to share their latest news with us.

“And whilst this meeting is open to non-members attending for the first time, it is a first and foremost a business meeting and not a public meeting.”

You can register to attend here on the Chamber website here.

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Harrogate training provider acquired

The team at FW Solutions

Harrogate-based training provider FW Solutions, has been acquired by Sheffield firm Realise.

FW Solutions, based in Windsor House, delivers apprenticeships and training to more than 100 early years settings across Yorkshire and North-East England.

It was formed in 2008 by husband-and-wife partnership Rodney and Sandra Hardy, who are now retiring.

The entire FW Solutions team, including all trainers, will move to become part of Realise, which will extend its provision by offering training in residential childcare.

Mr Hardy said:

“It is with a heavy heart that we are leaving FW Solutions but it’s the right time for Sandra and I to retire.

“We will miss all members of our highly qualified team, who have shown such loyal support and dedication over the last 14 years, as well as the expanding number of settings we have been fortunate to partner with.

“When we were initially approached by Realise regarding an acquisition, we knew this was an exciting opportunity to expand on the initial concept of FW Solutions yet retain the family-based environment which has been such a key part of the success.”

Realise, which became a standalone business two years ago when private equity investor Enact provided funding to support a management buyout, delivers apprenticeships at level two, three and five to hundreds of settings across the UK.

Marks & Spencer has decided to retain a café at its Leeds Road food hall in Harrogate after previously saying it would close.

The company announced in December it planned to increase the size of its food hall at Oatlands by more than 70% and extend into the neighbouring Sofa.com retail unit.

It said the scheme would enable it to ‘deliver a bigger, better and fresher new-look food hall’ but that it would mean closing the in-store café.

How the Oatlands food hall will look.

The café is a popular meeting point and the news prompted a petition calling for it to be retained.

M&S has now confirmed to the Stray Ferret that its new look food hall will include a café.

The woman who organised the petition, who lives near the food hall but asked not to be named, said the manager of the store had contacted her to say the café would be retained but would be smaller. She said she understood it was likely to be similar in size to the new Pret shop in Harrogate town centre.

But she welcomed the decision to retain the café:

“I’m pleased. There isn’t a café like it in the area. It’s a place people go to meet friends, especially older people.

“I think they recognise the whole community uses it and a lot of people said they wouldn’t go there any more if it closed.”

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• 200 people sign petition to save Harrogate M&S cafe
• M&S gives sneak peek of expanded Harrogate Oatlands store

Ten friends who met whilst working at the Betty’s bakery in Harrogate are taking on a challenge of walking three million steps in September after being inspired by a colleague who was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

David Smith, 55, was diagnosed with a grade 4 glioblastoma tumour in March this year.

The challenge is part of the Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity’s Step into September campaign, where supporters ‘walk, jog, dance or climb’ to raise funds for research and patient support.

Throughout the month, the colleagues and ex-colleagues will aim to walk as many steps as possible in an attempt to raise £2,000.

They hope to do most of the steps on Saturday, September 17, when they will walk 20km around Roundhay Park in Leeds.

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The walkers have been getting their steps across the local area, including in the Crimple Valley (photos: Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity)

Gemma Pickup, Mr Smith’s manager at Betty’s, said the group wanted to continue raising funds after the challenge.

The group’s ‘Do it for Dave, do it for Yorkshire’ idea is for the three million steps to be just the first challenge out of 20, with baking, fishing and swimming all on the agenda.

Ms Pickup said:

“I came up with ‘Do it for Dave, Do it for Yorkshire’ because Dave has been lacking motivation recently.

“Dave will have worked at Bettys for 20 years in September and we have all known him that long, so I came up with the idea of 20 challenges in 12 months to try and give him something to aim for and also a chance for people to reconnect with him and make some fun memories.”

The Yorkshire Brain Tumour Charity works to support brain tumour patients of all ages and their families across Yorkshire.

The charity has funded research at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust and at the Universities of Hull and Sheffield.

Over 1,000 people are diagnosed with brain tumours across the Yorkshire and the Humber region each year. Around 10% of those diagnosed are under 18 years old.

Harrogate Convention Centre could come under the control of a limited company as part of a potential bid by the borough council to protect its most prized asset.

With the abolition of Harrogate Borough Council fast approaching, the convention centre is set to be handed over to the new North Yorkshire Council next April as the venue also pushes ahead with plans for a £49 million redevelopment in the face of growing competition.

But borough council bosses have this week revealed they are working with consultants on new models for how the venue could be run.

This includes the possibility of creating a limited company which would be run by a board of directors, including senior staff and councillors, although it would still be owned and funded by the new North Yorkshire Council.

Paula Lorimer, director of Harrogate Convention Centre, told a meeting on Monday that events venues in Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow operate in this way and that this “would be my recommendation”.

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• £49m Harrogate Convention Centre redevelopment plans move to final design stage
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Wallace Sampson, chief executive of the borough council, also said the convention centre could follow the “success” of the district’s leisure centres which were brought under the control of the council’s new leisure company Brimhams Active last year. He said:

“Clearly our view is that Brimhams has been a success in terms of creating a local authority controlled company – it has got a very clear focus and strategic vision.

“There is now a model in place which gives it a degree of freedom to operate, notwithstanding the fact that there is a board with representation from the borough council.”

Mr Sampson also stressed that the council was looking into a variety of different business models for the convention centre and that this work with consultants KPMG “hasn’t concluded yet”.

As well as Brimhams Active, the council’s tourism company Destination Harrogate is also set to be handed over to the new North Yorkshire Council.

But what will happen to the companies after this major change for local government in seven months’ time remains unclear as council staff continue to plan how all services across North Yorkshire should be run in the future.

Councillor Pat Marsh, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat group, said she was worried that decisions about the convention centre “won’t be in our hands” without a limited company and that she had seen the benefits that such a move could bring as a board member on Brimhams Active. She said:

“We need to have that business as most councillors think the convention centre underpins the economy of this town.

“Without it, I wouldn’t like to think how Harrogate would be.”

The proposed £49 million redevelopment of the convention centre recently moved to the next design stage – although a final decision on the major plans is still just under a year away.

It will be in July or August next year when that decision is made and because of local government reorganisation, it will be taken by the new North Yorkshire Council.

The proposals come after warnings that the venue “may fail to survive” and suffer losses of up to £250 million over the next 40 years unless the redevelopment is carried out.

The Harrogate district is still the place in North Yorkshire with the highest number of cannabis farms, data from North Yorkshire Police has revealed.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that between 2016 and 2021, nine major farms with more than 25 plants were discovered in the Harrogate district.

That was almost double the amount found in the Selby district, which was the next highest with five.

This marked a continuation of a trend highlighted two years when an FOI request from the Stray Ferret found that the Harrogate district also had the highest number of cannabis farms then.

Between 2017 and 2020, officers made 22 arrests of people involved with cannabis farms in North Yorkshire.

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Countywide issue

In total over the five-year period between 2016 and 2021, Police recorded 25 crimes relating to cannabis farms across North Yorkshire.

Only two crimes were recorded in 2016/17 and there were three each in 2018/19 and 2019/20.

However, there were nine in 2017/18 and eight in 2020/21.

On average, 323 plants were seized from farms. The largest number recorded was 2,797.

Since the available data ended in 2021, North Yorkshire Police has continued to deal with the issue of large-scale cannabis production in the Harrogate area.

Earlier this year, seven people were jailed for a combined 22 years after Police discovered £450,000-worth of cannabis spread across farms at three properties.

In February, two men were stopped on the A1(M) with 14 kilos of cannabis in their car. They were jailed for two years.

North Yorkshire Police was approached for comment about the latest statistics and why the Harrogate district is so popular with cannabis growers but did not respond.

A Knaresborough café has played host to its first dog tea party, with both canines and owners getting sweet treats.

Scarlett’s tea room welcomed 25 white and fluffy Coton de Tulears.

The dogs went for a walk around the town with their owners before heading to the tea room to enjoy cake for humans and treats and chews for the dogs.

Sarah Williams, who runs Scarlett’s, called the event “hugely fun.”

The dogs getting treats at the tearoom (photo: Sarah Williams)

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The dogs with their owners (photo: Sarah Williams)

The Coton de Tulear is a small dog which originates from Madagascar.

They are known to be affectionate and playful, and are closely related to the Bichon Frise and Maltese breeds.

The dog owners who came to Knaresborough on Sunday are members of a Facebook group that occasionally meets up to walk their dogs together.

Ms Williams heard about the group through Hayley Goddard, who also works at the café, and said “why don’t you come to Knaresborough.”

25 dogs were at the event with their owners (photos: Sarah Williams)

According to Ms Williams, Scarlett’s team room has long proved popular with dogs. She said:

“We’ve got so many dogs that come into the tearoom. Some of them have to coax their owners in… And the dogs know that they can come get a treat. So as soon as they’re [nearby], they’re in here dragging their owners.”

Thankfully, she added, all the dogs were well behaved.

The dogs first went for a walk around Knaresborough (photo: Sarah Williams)