About 60 volunteers who gave up their time to help administer over 10,000 covid jabs in Pateley Bridge have been treated to a thank-you meal.
Samina Khan, owner of Pateley Bridge Pharmacy, and Dr Lewis Caplin, a GP who played a key role in the Nidderdale town’s vaccination programme, organised the event.
The pharmacy wound down its programme in December but is now set to provide more clinics following the announcement that people aged 75 and over, care home residents and those with weakened immune systems can book spring boosters.
Pateley Bridge Pharmacy was awarded an NHS England contract to give jabs at its third time of applying.
Some opposed the move, saying local people could attend the GP-run vaccine centres in Harrogate and Ripon. But not everyone was able to get to those locations easily.
Ms Khan said:
“A lot of our patients were relying on transport to get to the other places and it was costing them £60 for round trips, which is a lot of money.”
The pharmacy began giving jabs in April and administered 350 a day at its peak.
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- Plea for better drains after Pateley Bridge floods again
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Ms Khan said if Dr Caplin, a retired GP in Pateley Bridge, hadn’t agreed to oversee the vaccinations “I don’t think I would have been able to pursue it”.
The volunteers, who included vaccinators, marshals and administrative staff, enjoyed a free Indian meal at Cardamon Black restaurant in Harrogate on Sunday.
Ms Khan, who has also given volunteers gift vouchers, said:
“It was just to say thank you to them because they have given up their time to help protect the local community.”
The pharmacy plans to start providing jabs again in April.
All photos by Natasha Audsley
The organisers of Harrogate Christmas Market on Montpellier Hill have given up their battle to bring the event back.
The market, which was staged from 2012 to 2019, attracted over 80,000 visitors, 187 coaches and nearly 200 traders.
But the event was scuppered late into its planning stages last year when Harrogate Borough Council refused its event management plan.
The council then staged an alternative 10-day Harrogate Christmas Fayre in the town centre in partnership with Market Place, a specialist market company from Greater Manchester.
Brian Dunsby, co-organiser of the Montpellier Hill event, had been campaigning to bring back the event but he has now conceded defeat.
‘Fed-up to the back teeth’
He told the Stray Ferret he was “fed-up to the back teeth” with the situation with the council and negotiations had “reached the end of the line”.
“It’s extremely disappointing after eight years of extremely successful events and then two years waiting in the wings trying to keep it going.”
Mr Dunsby added it was too soon to contemplate what might happen when Harrogate Borough Council is abolished next year and replaced by the new North Yorkshire Council.
Read more:
- Businesses surveyed on Harrogate Christmas market preferences
- No. 5: A new era for Harrogate’s Christmas markets
A statement from Mr Dunsby and his wife, Beryl, co-organisers of Harrogate Christmas Market Ltd, said:
Drink-drive charge after car crashes into Harrogate garden“The Harrogate Christmas Market team leaders have now decided not to organise any future markets in Harrogate. We thank all our super local volunteers, voluntary organisations, local contractors and traders for all their support over the years.
“We wish those taking up the challenge of providing a good quality Christmas Market in Harrogate all the best as we know how hard it is to create something that is truly appreciated by visitors and traders and which supports local businesses.
“Thanks for your support over the past 10 years.”
Harrogate roads policing sergeant Paul Cording has published photos of a car that crashed into a Harrogate home over the weekend.
Sgt Cording, who regularly tweets about police life on the road, said the driver, who has not been named, had been charged with drink-driving and would appear in court next month. He tweeted:
“Thankfully no injuries and no one was in the garden at the time.”
He posted about the incident at about 7am yesterday morning.
RTC in #Harrogate where car has crashed into garden of residential property. Thankfully no injuries & no one was in the garden at the time. The driver has been arrested, interviewed & charged with drink driving. They have a date in court next month #Fatal5 pic.twitter.com/47QUe0oYK9
— Sgt Paul Cording BEM (@OscarRomeo1268) March 20, 2022
During two busy weekend night shifts, Sgt Cording also tweeted about a car driver in Ripon refusing to stop when asked by police and the recovery of class A drugs.
The driver of this vehicle decided they didn’t want to stop for Police in #Ripon and made off. Vehicle located a short time later with significant rear end damage and tyres tracks towards a sizeable tree!! Vehicle seized & enquiries ongoing pic.twitter.com/ZWgGr3uUtx
— Sgt Paul Cording BEM (@OscarRomeo1268) March 20, 2022
A flying start to the shift after this vehicle was stopped on the outskirts of #Harrogate I was then joined my my colleagues from #OpExpedite and a search recovered a substantial amount of believed Class A drugs #OneInCustody #PWITS #Result pic.twitter.com/H391LkXuVj
— Sgt Paul Cording BEM (@OscarRomeo1268) March 21, 2022
Read more:
- Police find 16 wraps of class A drugs in vehicle heading to Harrogate
- Plan to convert disused Harrogate church into seven homes
Tractor run inspires children’s learning in Pateley Bridge
Children were so excited by seeing hundreds of tractors parading through their town a week ago that they have been using the experience to learn.
Many youngsters from Sunflowers Day Nursery in Pateley Bridge watched Knaresborough Young Farmers Club’s tractor run on March 13. Some even rode alongside adults in tractors.
The event, which attracted a record 383 tractors, started at the Great Yorkshire Showground in Harrogate, stopped in Pateley Bridge for lunch and ended in Knaresborough.
Children were overwhelmed by the site of so many tractors.
It made such a big impression on young minds that the nursery adopted tractor-themed learning last week.
Nursery manager Heather Clark Kelly said:
“Many of our little Sunflowers were totally overwhelmed by the amount of tractors they saw and their experiences have totally impacted on our learning this week.
“We have been talking about tractors, counting tractors, classifying tractors be colour, lining up tractors, sharing pictures of our own tractors and finally concentrating on our different skills to colour and cut out tractors to make a huge picture.
“Everything which happens in the children’s lives presents a learning opportunity, and this was no exception.”
Read more:
- Record turnout for return of Knaresborough farmers’ tractor run
- Dogs saved after falling down hole near Pateley Bridge
Hot Seat: Leading the Harrogate district’s leisure revolution
Public leisure centres in the Harrogate district are experiencing their greatest investment ever.
Harrogate Borough Council is spending more than £40m on new pools in Ripon and Knaresborough and on a major refurbishment of The Hydro in Harrogate.
Mark Tweedie, managing director of Brimhams Active, oversees 250 staff responsible for delivering services at these sites as well as several others.
Brimhams is the council-owned company set up last year to promote health and wellbeing in the district.
It operates swimming pools in Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough, Pateley Bridge and Starbeck. All of these sites, except the magnificent old Starbeck Baths and the soon-to-be-rebuilt Knaresborough Pool, also have leisure or fitness centres.
Mark Tweedie with Jack Laugher at the opening of Ripon’s new facility.
Brimhams also oversees Fairfax Wellbeing and Community Hub in Harrogate, Jennyfield Styan Community Centre, a children’s nursery and the Harrogate Turkish Baths.
Mr Tweedie, 54, a former PE teacher with considerable experience of the leisure sector, was hired by the council in November 2020 to support the creation of Brimhams before transferring to his current role in July last year.
He says he was attracted by the council’s vision of using leisure to improve the health and wellbeing of people in the district, backed by its willingness to invest serious money to make it happen.
Difficult start
It hasn’t been an easy ride. There have been costly delays at the new Jack Laugher Leisure and Wellness Centre in Ripon due to sinkhole issues that long pre-date Mr Tweedie. A report due imminently will determine how much more work needs to be done before the site can fully open. He says:
“I’m absolutely confident it will be resolved. Yes, it’s been frustrating. I know customers have been desperate to come back since Spa Baths closed.”
There has been some discontent about the consultation and need for a new leisure centre in Knaresborough, where work is due to begin next month on a 65-week building programme due to finish in July next year.
How Knaresborough’s new pool will look.
Mr Tweedie says the transition from old to new site will be “seamless”, with the current facility operating until the new one opens — something that didn’t happen in Ripon, where the Spa Baths closed four months before the new pool opened due to delays.
Now there is the looming nine-month closure of The Hydro, which will leave Harrogate without a council-run pool.
Staffing has also been difficult — Brimhams has been consistently operating with 20 to 30 vacancies. Opening hours have been affected. Mr Tweedie says:
“It’s been a significant challenge, and it’s shared across the sector nationally.”
Read more:
- Ripon leisure centre named after local Olympic hero Jack Laugher
- £28m contracts for new Knaresborough pool and Harrogate Hydro upgrades approved
- Harrogate Hydro set to close for nine months
But there is little doubt that when all the projects are completed, the district’s facilities will be significantly better than they were pre-Brimhams. He says:
“We are through the worst and back on track and people in the Harrogate district and our staff have got a lot to look forward to.”
Aim to nearly double membership
The aim is to increase total membership at the sites in Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough to 5,000 within six months of the new facilities opening. Membership totalled about 3,000 at its pre-covid peak so it would be a considerable achievement but Mr Tweedie is “very confident” of achieving it. He says 400 people joined the Ripon centre in the fortnight after it opened.
How the refurbished Hydro will look.
Brimhams’s current monthly rate is £38.95. Customers at The Hydro are being offered a reduced rate of £32 to use the other sites while it is being refurbished. They will also be able to take part in group exercise sessions at the nearby Jennyfield Styan Community Centre.
Large private gym chains such as Pure Gym and Coach Gyms, which offer membership at about £20 a month, have extended their tentacles into the district, which can’t make life easy for council-run alternatives, but Mr Tweedie insists they are serving different markets.
“The private sector is dealing with the 15% that want to join a gym. The question is, what happens to the other 85%? How do we use public facilities to reach out to them?”
He talks about Brimhams taking “a more holistic approach” that leads to a “deeper and more purposeful relationship” with customers. People won’t come just to use the pool or gym, he says, but also to access a wider range of service that are being developed, such as mental health support, nutritional advice and mindfulness. It’s no coincidence that two Brimhams Active sites now include ‘wellbeing’ in their names — it’s clearly the way ahead.
A new software system, due to go live at the end of the month, will enable online booking and a “better digital relationship with customers”, as well as capturing footfall data that Brimhams can use to improve services.
Will it consider 24-hour opening, as many private gyms are? Mr Tweedie says:
“We have no plans for 24/7. We feel we can deal with our customer base between the hours of 6.30am and 10pm.”
Starbeck Baths
The scale of the council’s investment in leisure leads Mr Tweedie to say confidently there are no plans to reduce services or close Starbeck Baths, which is a constant threat to such an ageing facility. He adds:
“What the commercial approach is not about is reducing wages and staff and providing the bare bones of a service.”
All change next year
But his reassurances are tempered by the fact that Harrogate Borough Council will be abolished next year and control of Brimhams will transfer to the new North Yorkshire Council.
Brimhams staff will have a new employer from April 1 and, in time, a new strategy run by different managers.
Mr Tweedie, who lives in Morpeth and divides his time working from home and in the Harrogate district, says it could take at least a couple of years to implement whatever model the new council introduces so his role could exist for some time yet. He says:
“I want to deliver our three-year strategic plan and I am already working with other district leisure service leaders and North Yorkshire colleagues to manage the transition to the unitary authority.”
The important thing, he adds, is that customers don’t notice any sudden changes next year and that frontline staff, such as lifeguards and receptionists, are looked after. He says:
“It’s business as usual for us. We have a vision. We have a strategy. We have a plan we will deliver on that with a high level of tenacity.
Nidderdale Pool and Leisure Centre in Pateley Bridge.
Harrogate council launches free 12-week weight loss programme for men
Harrogate Borough Council‘s leisure company has launched a free weight management programme to help men get active, eat well and lose weight.
Brimhams Active has been running the Fit4Life initiative in the Harrogate district for some time.
But this week it has launched a free programme for men-only funded by North Yorkshire County Council.
The 12-week programme starts on Monday, March 28 and takes places once a week at Jennyfield Styan Community Centre in Harrogate from 7.30pm to 9pm.
The first half of the session will involve an exercise class followed by nutrition advice.
Brimhams Active’s staff will teach residents about food choices to change their current behaviour and how to develop a healthy relationship with food.
Read more:
- Harrogate Hydro set to close for nine months
- Harrogate tourism body makes health and wellbeing top priority
The programme will provide information about goal setting and eating awareness, dieting and myth bunking meal planning, portion sizes and shopping guidance.
To join, you must be a male aged 18 and over and have a body mass index over 30 kg/m2 (25 BMI if you have co-morbidities or are from BAME group), be willing to commit to losing five per cent of body weight and have no uncontrolled co-morbidities.
Changing lifestyles
Matthew O’Sullivan, health and wellbeing development officer at Brimhams, said:
“Fit4Life is a fantastic weight management programme and we’ve had some really successful stories of people losing weight but more importantly completely changing their lifestyles for the better.
“We know men might be reluctant to attend a mixed Fit4Life session so have decided to launch a specific session on a Monday evening in Harrogate that will be really informal and a chance to take part in an exercise class as well as learn about to achieve healthy weight loss.”
To book a place, call 01423 556106 or email active.health@brimhamsactive.co.uk.
Knaresborough’s Philip Allott launches marketing bookKnaresborough man and former police commissioner Philip Allott has written a book on marketing.
Integrated Business to Business Marketing provides “a complete blueprint for success in communicating promotional messages in the digital age”.
Mr Allott, who founded PR company Allott and Associates in 1994, said the book builds on his “40 years of practical experience” of marketing.
It is written for business owners, directors and marketing managers in the UK and abroad and covers topics such as how material written for press releases can be used for social media platforms and e-newsletters.
Mr Allott is a former leader of the Conservatives on Harrogate Borough Council and a former Mayor of Knaresborough who stood unsuccessfully in several general elections for the Conservative Party.
He was elected North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner in May last year but resigned in October in the wake of comments about the murder of Sarah Everard.
Read more:
- Police commissioner Philip Allott resigns
- Record turnout for return of Knaresborough farmers’ tractor run
Mr Allott is also the author of The Donkeyman, which was published in 2007. It talks about the life and times of his donkey-breeding father, who was known as Donkey Dave.
His new book, which is distributed by John Hunt Publishing, will be available from next month on Amazon and at Waterstones.
Police find 16 wraps of class A drugs in vehicle heading to Harrogate
Police found 16 wraps of what is believed to be class A drugs when they stopped a vehicle heading to Harrogate from West Yorkshire.
Officers also found three mobile phones and £350 of cash.
The driver, a 30-year-old man from West Yorkshire, was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply a class A-drug but later released while enquiries continue.
North Yorkshire Police revealed the details today in an update on a ‘week of intensification’ into tackling county lines drugs, which refers to organised criminal groups moving and supplying drugs, usually from cities into smaller towns and rural areas.
An operation support unit officer ready to conduct a warrant.
Harrogate’s affluent population is often targeted by dealers in Bradford and Leeds.
Read more:
- Police still investigating missing Porsches at former Knaresborough car dealership
- Highways boss ‘confident’ Harrogate park and ride can still be funded
The force said it has arrested 17 people and safeguarded vulnerable people during the week of targeted action, which was part of a national campaign from March 7 to 13.
Police also executed warrants at addresses linked to drugs and carried out several safeguarding visits to help prevent ‘cuckooing’ taking place.
This is when county lines dealers take over the home of a vulnerable person for a short time while they carry out their activities before returning to their town or city.
Police sniffer dogs search for drugs.
Detective Chief Inspector Lorraine Crossman-Smith, who coordinated the week of activity in North Yorkshire, said:
Traffic cop posts pic of ‘horrendous shed of a car’ stopped near Ripon“Whilst we work all year to take drugs off the streets of North Yorkshire this week of intensification has brought some substantial results. By disrupting supply lines and taking those involved out of circulation we can make North Yorkshire’s communities safer.
“We can only do this with the support and information that we get from residents so I would urge anyone with information about drug dealing in their community to call us on 101, we treat every piece of information as important.”
A Harrogate traffic constable has revealed photos of “a horrendous shed of a car” that was stopped by police near Ripon.
Traffic Constable David Minto said a colleague pulled over the Audi at Baldersby, near Ripon.
He then requested support from TC Minto, who said on his Twitter account:
“It wasn’t a difficult decision for me. All four tyres had defects. The rear offside in particular was in a dreadful state
Read more:
TC Minto added two different size tyres were fitted to the front axle and all the tyres were below the legal tread depth.
He added:
“It was a horrendous shed of a car. The driver has been reported and a court date looms.”
One person responded on Twitter to say Baldersby was an apt place for such an incident to occur, judging by the state of the tyres.
1 of 2 My colleague stopped this today on #A1M near #Baldersby #Ripon He requested support in relation to examination for a possible #PG9 #Prohibition It wasn’t a difficult decision for me… All four tyres had defects. The rear offside in particular was in a dreadful state … pic.twitter.com/s9zHTGDWxJ
— David Minto (@TC174_NYP) March 16, 2022
2 of 2 …Two different size tyres were fitted to the front axle and all were below the legal tread depth. It was a horrendous shed of a car. The driver has been reported and a court date looms #DangerousCondition #SaferRoads #RoadSafety #RoadsPolicing #ProtectingOtherRoadUsers pic.twitter.com/uwkjtSzL87
— David Minto (@TC174_NYP) March 16, 2022
Harrogate Hydro set to close for nine months
The Hydro in Harrogate will close for nine months on April 8 to undergo an £11.8m refurbishment.
The leisure centre and pool is to get a two-storey extension as well as a new entrance, cafe and reception area.
There will also be new diving board equipment, a new fitness suite and the changing areas will be upgraded.
Members will be offered reduced rates to use other council-run leisure facilities in the district, as well as the opportunity to participate in group exercise sessions at the nearby Jennyfield Styan Community Centre.
The current £38.95 monthly charge will go down to £32.
A computer generated image of how the Hydro will look.
Mark Tweedie, managing director of Brimhams Active, which Harrogate Borough Council set up last year to run its leisure facilities, said the plan was to reopen the pool first in nine months time.
The other facilities, including the new fitness suite, are expected to be ready three months later.
Extend opening hours
Mr Tweedie said the refurbishment would give Brimhams Active the opportunity to redeploy staff at its other sites, which could enable some to extend their opening hours.
However, it will leave Harrogate without a council-run swimming pool for the rest of the year.
Brimhams also operates the Jack Laugher Leisure and Wellness Centre in Ripon, Knaresborough Pool, Starbeck Baths and Nidderdale Pool and Leisure Centre in Pateley Bridge.
It also operates the Turkish Baths in Harrogate, Fairfax Wellbeing and Community Hub in Harrogate, Jennyfield Styan Community Centre and Little Explorers Day Nursery at Harrogate Hydro.
Look for a full interview with Mark Tweedie about leisure services in the Harrogate district on the Stray Ferret this weekend.