John Plummer, Author at The Stray Ferret

National Trust plans major £3.6m building project at Fountains Abbey

The National Trust today revealed designs for a new £3.6 million building and landscape project at the Studley Royal end of Fountains Abbey, near Ripon.

The project, called Studley Revealed, aims to create a more accessible café, admission point and toilets and restore historical sightlines to the 18th century Georgian water garden created by John Aislabie.

However, the new building would be situated inside the water garden and only be accessible to people who pay to enter.

The current tea room on the deer park side, which is free to enter, will close. A kiosk providing drinks and snacks will be built in the deer park car park, accessible to everyone.

The restaurant and parking at the main visitor centre will remain free for all to access.

How the new entrance and outside seating to the building from the canal bridge might look.

The trust says the plans, which went out to consultation in 2019 before being paused due to covid, will make Studley Royal less “muddled”.

It will submit a formal planning application to Harrogate Borough Council in the new year.

The organisation said in a statement today:

“This area is currently muddled with 20th century buildings and additions which make up an admission point, toilets, and the boundary of the pay-for entry area.

“For years this has created a large number of conservation and operational issues which are not appropriate in a World Heritage Site.

“The updated improvements will consolidate these facilities into one building and improve the way visitors move through this area.”

The trust added the landscape plans would “open up lost views and create walks that echo the original 18th century design”.

How the view of the building from the deer park might look.

New facilities including historical information, accessible toilets and a ‘space to change’ have also been included.

The trust has consulted Historic England, Harrogate Borough Council, World Heritage Site partners and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on its plans.

It has appointed London heritage architects Feilden Fowles and Edinburgh landscape architects Rankinfraser to carry out the work.

How the new cafe seating area might look.

Justin Scully, general manager of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, said:

“The Studley Revealed project is an exciting part of the ongoing conservation of the Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal World Heritage Site.

“It has long been our ambition to improve the appearance of this area of the site and how visitors experience it.

“Crucially, it means we can create a place for our visitors to learn more about the fascinating history of Studley Royal.”

The designs and information about the project will be displayed at the Studley entrance from tomorrow until December 22 (excluding December 16) and can also be viewed here.

The trust aims to open the new facilities to visitors in late 2024.

Harrogate’s special care baby unit receives donated toys

The special care baby unit at Harrogate District Hospital has received a consignment of toys in time for Christmas.

Harrogate Convention Centre donated dolls and a toy kitchen, which were donated by exhibitors at the Harrogate International Nursery Fair it hosted this year.

The convention centre has helped event organisers and exhibitors to donate toys, food and other event supplies and display samples to local schools, hospitals, homeless people and charities over the years.

Sally Baxter, unit sister at the special care baby unit, which cares for sick and preterm infants, said:

“It means so much to the families who have a baby on the unit that also have young siblings.

“The toys will really help make our parents’ experience on the unit so much better in what is a very stressful time for them. Thank you once again, it makes such a difference.”

HCC Toy Donation Harrogate District Hospital

The donated toy kitchen

This year’s Harrogate International Nursery Fair took up an additional hall at the convention centre. It attracted 140 exhibitors and visitors from over 15 countries.

Event organiser Adrian Sneyd said:

“Harrogate has been home to our nursery trade show annually for over five decades with around 4,000 participants enjoying the town’s hospitality each year.

“We are delighted that our exhibitors have donated toys for the benefit of local families and their babies.”

Paula Lorimer, director of the convention centre, said:

“As a member of the community and especially in this festive season in the midst of the cost of living crisis, we are delighted to do what we can to help make sure those in need can benefit from the event industry.”

Fire at Fountains Abbey causes carols to be cancelled

An electrical fault caused a fire at Fountains Abbey near Ripon yesterday.

Ripon firefighters were called to the National Trust-owned property at 12.13pm after staff discovered there had been a small fire.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service‘s incident log said staff on site had already summoned an electrician and firefighters isolated the electricity supply.

A spokeswoman for Fountains Abbey said:

“There was a small electrical fire in the abbey on Sunday morning.

“Ripon fire service were contacted immediately and on arrival, they confirmed the fire was out and had been contained.

“Due to the nature of the fire, as a precaution, we took the decision to cancel Carols by Candlelight – despite its name, the event does require electrical power for a sound system to amplify the service to visitors, and to ensure there is sufficient lighting the abbey for the safety of our visitors.

“We’re very grateful to the fire service for their quick response and support.”

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is is one of the largest and best preserved ruined Cistercian monasteries in England.

Viper Rooms: council issues statement after repossessing Harrogate nightclub

North Yorkshire County Council has said it acted in the “best interests” of taxpayers after it repossessed Harrogate’s Viper Rooms.

Bailiffs acting on behalf of the council entered the Parliament Street nightclub on Friday and changed the locks.

Notices pinned to the doors said any attempt to re-enter the premises would result in criminal or civil proceedings.

It prompted the club to announce on social media, hours before it was due to open, that it had closed with the loss of 30 jobs.

The venue, which was Harrogate’s last remaining nightclub, is part of the Royal Baths commercial investment portfolio acquired by the council for £9 million in 2018.

The club is part of the Royal Baths.

Gary Fielding, corporate director for strategic resources at the council, said in a statement to the Stray Ferret:

“We are unable to discuss details about specific cases that North Yorkshire County Council is involved in.

“However, we will pursue our policies that protect the best interests of North Yorkshire’s taxpayers, and will therefore act accordingly.”

The council has been under pressure to generate better returns on the Baths.

It was described as an “underperforming trophy asset” by one councillor last year because of its low rate of investment returns.

Last month the council warned it would take a tougher line on tenants following further poor investment returns.

Mr Fielding said the council “has done all it reasonably can to support its tenants” through covid, adding:

“We work with our tenants to understand their circumstances in order to maximise the income into the council.

“However, it is not the council’s responsibility to support tenants indefinitely, and if businesses are not sustainable then we work with tenants to bring tenancies to a close.”

Harrogate train station becomes mobility scooter-friendly

Rail company Northern has added Harrogate to its list of mobility scooter-friendly stations.

It means staff will be on hand to help mobility scooter users, providing items such as ramps to access trains.

Northern said this week 38 new stations, including Harrogate, had become mobility scooter-friendly, bringing the total to more than 160 stations across 28 routes.

Anyone travelling on a mobility scooter must first obtain a permit from Northern to ensure the model they use meets certain size and manoeuvrability specifications.

The scheme is free and registered passengers are given a personalised sticker that will placed on the pre-assessed vehicle. This will be accompanied by a card that can be carried by customers if they use scooters that don’t have a suitable place to display the sticker.

Mark Powles, customer and commercial director at Northern, said:

“We are committed to giving people with additional mobility needs the confidence to travel by rail. We want to support our customers whenever they need it.

“The mobility scooter scheme is an example of this commitment and we’ll be looking to deliver improved accessibility across our network as we roll out similar improvements at other stations in the future.”

Northern recently banned all e-scooters, hoverboards and e-skateboards across its trains and stations in the north of England

However, electric wheelchairs and e-bikes are exempt from the ban – as are mobility scooters for those with access needs, as long as they are registered with the train operator’s mobility scooter permit scheme – which checks devices by a range of criteria to make sure they are safe to use on-board.

Northern is the second largest train operator in the UK, with nearly 2,000 services a day to more than 500 stations across the north of England.

Meet Harrogate’s unlikely TikTok star

If you were asked to guess which Harrogate business was leading the way on TikTok, a traditional gentleman’s outfitters owned by a man approaching 60 might not be the first place that came to mind.

But Rhodes Wood, a cornerstone of town centre shopping for three generations, has become a TikTok sensation since venturing on to the social media platform about five months ago. One video of owner Jeremy Beaumont showing how to tie a tie has had 10.8 million views.

The stats aren’t just impressive — they have translated into an uplift in sales from around the world, prompted two TV appearances and encouraged some Harrogate shoppers who might have felt a little intimidated by entering such a high end shop to give it a go.

Mr Beaumont’s son Charles, who was 19 at the time, persuaded him to give it a go and since then their short videos combining practical advice with fun have proved a worldwide hit.

The video on how to tie a Windsor knot attracted one million views within a day and has now been watched 10.8 million times.

Mr Beaumont shows his shop’s TikTok account.

One video shows Mr Beaumont, a former martial arts practitioner with remarkable flexibility for a man of 59, perform a spinning back kick.

He baulks at the suggestion he is some kind of TikTok expert or social media influencer. He admits he hasn’t a clue about the intricacies of TikTok and seems slightly baffled by his success:

“My son said ‘try it for a month and see how it goes. Our first sale was a meaningful sale and it’s just taken off.”

Rhodes Wood, on Parliament Street, sells classic menswear and vintage luggage and Mr Beaumont’s specialism in these niche fields gives him an edge over many retailers.

Nevertheless, he feels other businesses ought to consider TikTok instead of writing it off it as a fad among young people without money. Like other social media, it is evolving beyond that. He said:

“I think it’s about finding a balance and not being too salesy. If you can show a human face and a courteous manner that helps too,.

“It’s encouraging people who have walked past the shop for 10 or 15 years but never been in to cross the threshold because they realise we don’t bite.

“One man who walked past for years came in because his daughter showed him a video of me on TikTok. Two guys from Teesside came in because they’d seen me on it.”

Mr Beaumont admits engaging with people who comment on his posts is time consuming. He often wakes in the night and chats with people in America or Australia.

But the effort is worth it. He plans to set up online sales on his shop’s website — something he has not found cost effective in the past — and direct TikTok followers to it.

But social media fame sits uncomfortably:

“In truth I’m a shy person. It’s different in here because it’s my own domain.”

Laptop and cash stolen from Harrogate community group while it helped others

A thief has stolen a laptop and cash from food waste community group Resurrected Bites.

The culprit took the items from the organisation’s give as you can cafe at West Park United Reformed Church in Harrogate on Wednesday while volunteers were helping people in need.

Resurrected Bites works with local businesses and suppliers to divert food from landfill and converts it into meals in its cafes in Harrogate and Knaresborough. It also operates a community groceries scheme.

Michelle Hayes, founder and director of Resurrected Bites, said:

“We are gutted and hope the person will do the right thing and return what they took.”

Ms Hayes said no personal data had been compromised but added the incident had been a “wake-up call”:

“It was an opportunistic thief at lunchtime. We will have to be a lot more vigilant on security going forward.

“We are a naturally trusting group of people and it’s very sad that someone would steal from us.”

The Stray Ferret is running a Christmas appeal to raise money for Resurrected Bites, after it issued a plea for funding to keep its services alive.

The target was originally £5,000, which was achieved in days, and has since been raised to £20,000. The current total is £12,800. You can donate here.

The reduction in the number of fire engines crewed overnight in Harrogate looks set to be implemented next year.

Zoë Metcalfe, the Conservative North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, today published her blueprint on how fire resources will be deployed over the next three years.

Her Risk and Resource Model includes greater investment on fire prevention and rural on-call stations. But full-time urban fire stations in Harrogate and Scarborough will see the number of appliances staffed between 10pm and 9am reduced from two to one.

They will, however, get two emergency rescue fire engines at other times, when most fires occur, rather than the current one emergency vehicle and one less well equipped tactical response vehicle.

The nighttime reduction has been criticised by unions and councillors for putting lives at risk.

But today’s report, which was published after a 12-week summer consultation, provides some consolation. It says:

“We will adjust the night staffing proposals at Harrogate and Scarborough to provide added resilience by adding an additional firefighter.”

‘Low number of incidents’

The report reveals the county’s fire and rescue service received £38.2 million funding 2022/23, of which £23.4 millions came from council taxpayers.

Two-thirds of fire stations are on-call stations where firefighters respond to a pager from home or from their work. Ripon, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Masham, Lofthouse and Summerbridge have on-call stations in the Harrogate district, although Ripon has a full-time crew during the day.

Fire station locations in North Yorkshire. Pic: North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner

The report says:

“Because many people do not live and work in the same community anymore, many of our on-call stations struggle to have enough firefighters available to respond, especially during the day when demand is highest.”

It also says “many of our fire engines attend a relatively low number of incidents”. In the year to March, 31 2022, firefighters attended 7,594 incidents, of which 1,742 were fires, 2,485 incidents classed as ‘special services’ and 3,367 false alarms.

‘Reduce the need for an emergency response’

The report says the “increased focus on prevention aims to address and reduce risk and the need for an emergency response”.

The joint foreword by Ms Metcalfe and chief fire officer Jonathan Dyson says:

“We are a predominantly rural service where most of our stations are crewed by on-call firefighters. It is increasingly challenging to recruit and retain staff to keep our rural fire engines available to respond to emergencies. We intend to modernise and invest in our on-call service model to ensure it is sustainable and fit for the future and ultimately improve fire engine availability.

The report says the consultation revealed more support in favour of the proposals than against, but adds:

“The extent of disagreement was greater for proposed changes to the provision of response resource (Huntington, Harrogate and Scarborough).”

Harrogate army instructor faces court martial over sex charges

An instructor at Harrogate’s Army Foundation College is to appear before a court martial next month accused of sexual offences.

The college, on Penny Pot Lane, provides 23-week and 49-week basic training courses to junior soldiers aged 16 to 18.

It was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted last year but has been dogged by allegations of misconduct.

A British Army spokesman said:

“We are aware of a number of alleged incidents, some of which are historical, at Army Foundation College Harrogate. These are being investigated.

“Those who are guilty of wrongdoing will be held accountable for their actions. It would be inappropriate to comment further.”

The Telegraph reported this week the instructor is charged with more than 20 offences, including at least five counts of alleged sexual assaults of 16-year-old girls.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told the newspaper the government was drawing up plans to ensure army instructors who have sex with their students faced criminal prosecutions.

Harrogate’s Rachel Daly named WSL Player of the Month — again!

Harrogate-born footballer Rachel Daly’s amazing year continued today when she was named Barclays Women’s Super League Player of the Month for November.

Daly, who was part of England’s thrilling European Championships success in the summer, has been in red-hot form in front of goal since signing for Aston Villa from Houston Dash this season.

She won the player of the month award in September and has now landed it a second time for playing a key role in Villa victories over Liverpool and Reading in November.

Rachel Daly displays her award.

The former Killinghall Nomads player scored a penalty to seal a 1-0 win over Liverpool before recording a hat-trick against Reading at Villa Park to give her four league goals last month.

Daly is the league’s joint top scorer and has helped catapult Villa to fifth in the table.

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‘Low number of incidents’

‘Reduce the need for an emergency response’

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