Stray FM licence should have been re-advertised, says Harrogate peer

Stray FM should have had its licence re-advertised rather than be allowed to lose its “special identity” to “out-of-town owners”, a Harrogate Conservative peer has said.

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate said Ofcom, which regulates commercial radio, needed to do more to protect “well-loved” radio stations that were being “absorbed into the mega-conglomerates that now seem to control the sector”.

Speaking in a Lords debate about radio licenses, he added:

“In the region where I live in Yorkshire, a large number of local stations have lost their special identity as their out-of-town owners dispose of local staff and content, and simply hijack the licensed frequency to pump out centrally edited music that is obtainable in various other ways, either from national broadcasters or through web streaming services.

“That simply should not have been allowed.”

Lord Kirkhope, who is a lawyer and former MP for Leeds North East, has a long-standing interest in radio.

He helped set up a hospital station in Newcastle in the 1960s and subsequently applied unsuccessfully for for the Tyne and Wear franchise that went to Metro radio in 1973.

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He told the Stray Ferret he had Stray FM, which owners Bauer Media rebranded as Greatest Hits Radio in September, and other local radio stations in mind when he made his comments in Parliament.

He added licences should not have granted “without adequate local content”, adding:

“In those cases I consider there has been a breach of the spirit of the regulations if not the legality.

“In some of the obvious local cases like Stray FM those licences should instead have been re-advertised.

“After all, I might have been interested myself in maintaining the local spirit and I think there are others who might have joined me.”

Bauer Media has always maintained the station retains local content and services, as well as a presence in Harrogate.

 

Leeds nearest hospital to get first vaccines

Leeds will be the nearest place to receive the first coronavirus vaccines, according to national media reports this morning,

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said yesterday 50 hospitals were ready to receive the vaccine within days.

The Department of Health has yet to publish an official list of hospitals or details of how the jab will be administered. But the names of the 50 hospitals appear to have been leaked to the national media, some of which have published them today.

According to the reports, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, whose hospitals include Leeds General Infirmary, is the nearest to the Harrogate district.

The Harrogate Nightingale is not included on the list.

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The vaccine must be kept at -70°C until it is used, which means sites chosen to administer it must have adequate storage facilities.

Hancock has also said there will be a community rollout of the vaccine, including GPs and pharmacists.

The Stray Ferret asked Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust if it could confirm it was not on the list.

A spokesman replied:

“Any comment on decisions on which hospitals are on the list would be something for the NHS England regional communications team.”

Harrogate district health bosses expect ‘long journey’ to tier one

Health bosses in the Harrogate district said today they expect it to be a “long journey” from tier two to tier one.

The government is due to review the tiers every two weeks, which means the first opportunity to change will be on December 16.

But with infection rates in North Yorkshire nearly double those in tier one areas, any hopes of change before Christmas appear slim.

Richard Webb, director of adult social care at the county council, said at a coronavirus media briefing today:

“We need to work really hard to stay at tier two and hopefully reduce in due course to tier one.

“I think the advice that we are getting is that it might be quite a long journey to get out of tier two and into tier one.

“I know there will be some parts of the county that are very anxious to see that change. So we are going to have to continue to work hard to drive infection rates down.”

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Infection rates have shrunk considerably since the second half of November.

The Harrogate district’s seven-day average rate of infection is now 90 people per 100,000. This is lower than both North Yorkshire and England, whose rates are 104 and 152 respectively.

The R number for the district, which refers to how rapidly the virus is spreading in the community, has fallen again this week from 0.6 to 0.5. This means every 10 people with covid will infect five.

Public Health England reported another 25 cases today.

Killinghall and Hampsthwaite is by some distance the district’s covid hotspot. It has recorded 27 infections in the last seven days.

The next highest sub-districts are Harrogate West and Pannal and Ouseburn, Hammerton and Tockwith, both of which have had 14.

Killinghall and Hampsthwaite actually has the fourth highest number of infections of all the sub-districts in North Yorkshire.

 

 

Two arrested in Harrogate police drugs swoop

Police have seized drugs from a house in Harrogate and arrested two people.

Officers based in Harrogate entered a flat on Knaresborough Road on Friday and recovered drugs, including edible cannabis, and other drug paraphernalia.

A 27-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply a controlled drug and an 18-year-old woman was also arrested for being concerned in the supply of a controlled drug.

Both were later released. Enquires are ongoing.

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PC Nicholas Woods, of North Yorkshire Police, said:

“Drugs have a negative impact on our communities, and I encourage everyone to look out for common signs of drug dealing and to report it.

“Harrogate Police will continue to proactively disrupt drug activity and help make Harrogate a safer place to live and work.”

North Yorkshire Police urged anyone noticing suspicious drug activity to report it using the non-emergency number 101, or pass information on anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

 

Harrogate district farmers fearful of post-Brexit future

Farmers in the Harrogate district have expressed fears for their future as the industry prepares for its biggest shake-up in almost 50 years.

The government confirmed this week farmers will lose 50 per cent of the support payments they receive from the European Union by 2024.

George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, said the government’s new system, named Environmental Land Management, will pay farmers if they prevent floods, plant woods and help wildlife.

But details of replacement support payments when the post-Brexit transition period ends on 31 December remain unclear.

Nigel Pulling, chief executive of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society

Nigel Pulling, chief executive of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, the farming charity that organises the Great Yorkshire Show, said:

“It has been clear for some time that the current system of support payments will change, but there remains real anxiety about what the government’s future agricultural policy will mean for family farming businesses and livelihoods.

“Many farmers stand willing to embrace the changes ahead, however a lack of practical detail about how new support arrangements will work for farm businesses continues to make it difficult to plan for the future.”

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Mr Pulling added the society “will continue to support the farming community throughout the forthcoming transition” by “offering opportunities for skills development and knowledge exchange” and by promoting agriculture.

Sheep farmers are expected to be among the worst hit if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

The EU is the UK’s biggest export market for lamb: 90% of all lamb exports go to the EU so the industry could be devastated by tariffs.

This could have severe implications for sheep farmers in the district.

Beckwithshaw farmer David Wilson, chair of the Dalesbred Sheep Breeders Association, said many farmers could go out of business if the situation was not resolved.

Mr Wilson, whose son is the fifth generation of the family farming business, said:

“The future of farming is at stake. We just don’t know what is going to happen. We don’t know if we are coming or going.”

 

 

Harrogate district covid rates fall by two-thirds during lockdown

The Harrogate district is set to end the second lockdown with a far lower rate of covid than when it started.

Government figures today reveal the district has an average seven-day rate of infection of 92 people per 100,000, compared with 277 people per 100,000 on November 5.

This means the rate has fallen by about two-thirds since lockdown began.

The England average is currently 154 and the North Yorkshire average is 107.

The R number has fallen from a peak of 1.6 last month to 0.6 today. This means every 10 people with covid will infect another six.

Public Health England recorded another 18 positive test results today, which is well below the 95 on November 9.

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There were no further deaths reported today at either Harrogate District Hospital or in the district’s care homes.

Killinghall and Hampsthwaite remains the district’s covid hotspot, with 26 infections in the last seven days.

The next highest is Ouseburn, Hammerton and Tockwith with 18.

Pateley Bridge and Nidd Valley, Masham, Kirkby Malzeard and North Stainley and Ripon North and West have not recorded a single new infection for at least seven days.

 

Harrogate man finishes 9th at World’s Strongest Man

A Harrogate man is set to dominate TV screens over the festive period after finishing ninth at the World’s Strongest Man.

Luke Richardson’s result in Florida completed a remarkable year that has seen him go from novice to one of the most talked about strength athletes on the planet at the age of just 23.

Luke, a former powerlifter, only took part in his first strongman competition last year. Since then he has finished fourth at Britain’s Strongest Man, won Europe’s Strongest Man and is now ranked ninth in the world.

Channel 5 is due to broadcast coverage of all three events over Christmas and New Year.

Luke does the log lift. Pic courtesy of SBD. 

It’s still sinking in for Luke, who was working as a lifeguard at Starbeck Baths recently and is now a professional strongman with his own gym, multiple sponsors and almost 60,000 Instagram followers. He says:

“It’s been quite a year. But I was actually a bit disappointed with my performance in the World’s Strongest Man final.

“I held my own on some events but some silly mistakes on others let me down. Next year I’d like to get in the top five, then finish on the podium and then maybe win a few.”

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Luke would become the youngest ever winner of the World’s Strongest Man if he takes the title in 2021. Beyond that, he has his sights set on breaking the all-time record of five World’s Strongest Man titles held by Poland’s Mariusz Pudzianowski. He says:

“It’s a tall order but i’ve got age on my side and I love what I do. It’s my passion.”

Starbeck school

Luke has lived in Harrogate all of his life. He attended Starbeck Community Primary School and Harrogate High School and discovered he was “quite strong” when he joined Phoenix Fitness in Starbeck at 18.

North Yorkshire is a strongman hotspot. Darren Sadler, a former World’s Strongest Man competitor who now organises many of the leading events, owns Absolute Fitness in Boroughbridge which attracts many top competitors.

Luke trains there on a Monday night but has opened a gym in Wetherby with his training partner Richard Parish called the LR Strength Shed.

He entered his first powerlifting competition when he was 19 and won three British, two European and one world title before switching to strongman 18 months ago.

He only lost one powerlifting competition and at 21 became the youngest person ever to achieve a total of 1,000 kg in the three powerlifting lifts when he managed a 403 kg squat, 222.5 kg bench press and 385 kg deadlift.

Weighs 150 kg

Strongman is far more multi-faceted than many people realise, which makes Luke’s rapid ascent to the top even more remarkable. Luke, who is 6 ft 3 tall and weighs 150 kg, explains:

“My training has changed massively. You have to be the most versatile athlete: you’ve got to have the strength of a powerlifter and the movement of a Cross-Fitter. You have to be a jack of all trades.

“The guy who can pull 500kg on a deadlift probably won’t be as good carrying five sacks down a course because he won’t be as quick. You have to be fit, fast and big.”

Luke Richardson winning Europe’s Strongest Man. Pic courtesy of SBD. 

6,000 calories a day

Luke trains five days a week for four hours a time. He eats 6,000 calories daily in five meals.

By strongman standards, he’s quite small. Hafþór Björnsson, the Icelandic former World’s Strongest Man and Game of Thrones star, is 6 ft 11 and 205 kg. Luke says:

“We are emerging out of the era of mass giants.  You don’t have to be 200kg to win these days.”

It isn’t easy for strongmen to blend in but Luke still walks around Harrogate largely unnoticed. Does he ever get recognised?

“Sometimes when I’m in shops. I don’t mind. It’s nice to be recognised when you try hard to achieve something.”

After this month’s strongman TV coverage, it may happen more often.

 

 

Visit Harrogate website contract awarded without tender

Harrogate Borough Council has awarded a contract without competitive tender to a company from Ipswich to rebuild its tourism website.

The council approved the move on Thursday, saying covid had created an “economic crisis” that necessitated bypassing its usual procurement rules.

The meeting was not open to the public but a report prepared in advance for councillors recommended hiring the Jacob Bailey Group for four years to redevelop the Visit Harrogate site.

The report said it would take six months to undertake a “full procurement process” and the site needed to be ready in time for the 2021 tourist season. It adds:

“The exceptional circumstances that justify this are due to covid creating an economic crisis within the visitor economy.”

The document says there were just two main companies providing services in this field and “market research” had identified the Jacob Bailey Group.

Recently the authority was criticised by a local businessman for awarding a contract to project manage its investment in leisure services to a firm in Somerset – again without going through a tendering process.

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HBC said the current Visit Harrogate site, which the council acquired in 2020, had suffered from “historic underinvestment” and “visually no longer meets the user requirements or expectations”.

According to the report, the site receives over 800,000 hits a year. It adds:

“The 2021 tourism season is going to be vital for the visitor economy and its success will decide the fate of local businesses, to ensure the best possible outcome an optimal online presence for the visitor experience must be operational.”

The Stray Ferret asked the council the value of the contract, why it had not dealt with the matter sooner, what market research had led it to select the Jacob Bailey Group and whether it felt any local firms were capable of providing the service.

A council spokesman replied with the following statement:

“In March 2021 the contract with the current supplier of the Visit Harrogate website will expire.

“On November 26, the cabinet member approved the appointment of Jacob Bailey Group to provide a new destination marketing website incorporating a destination management system.

“This is vitally important in order to support the recovery of the Harrogate district’s visitor economy.

“This is an exciting development, building on the success of the existing Visit Harrogate site and will ensure our district continues to attract visitors at a time when the sector needs support the most.”

Pateley Bridge: no covid cases for 10 days but pubs stay shut

According to government statistics, there has not been a single new covid infection for at least 10 days in Pateley Bridge and nearby Nidd Valley.

Yet it seems many pubs in the Nidderdale town, which were hoping for a pre-Christmas boost after a dire year, are set to stay shut on Wednesday when lockdown ends.

Dan Elliot, general manager of the Royal Oak, sums up the frustration:

“Unless we go into tier 1 we will stay shut.

“The rules don’t suit small businesses like us. It seems they are making it viable for big chain pubs but the rules absolutely don’t work for your little country pub like us.”

The Royal Oak, which has four staff, serves meals so could open. But social distancing guidelines make it pointless, says Mr Elliot.

“There’s no way whatsoever to make it profitable.

“We’ve always had a good food trade but it’s more of a drinkers’ pub. For a pub that relies predominantly on locals and drinkers you have no hope.

“Unless you have space for loads of tables, or try and cheat the rules by doing cheap substantial meals, it’s just not viable.”

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The pub, which spent £300 putting up plastic screens in the bar and also erected sheltering to encourage customers to go outdoors, is a key part of the community.

Takeaway meals served at weekends during lockdown have been a lifeline to many older people.

It plans to continue selling weekend takeaways as well as providing £8 oven-ready Christmas Day meals.

But nobody knows when it will welcome locals, cyclists and walkers back through its doors — and this isn’t easy to accept in a place where there has not been a single new infection for almost two weeks. Mr Elliot says:

“We’ve done test and trace and we have not had any cases yet. I believe only one pub or restaurant in Pateley has had a case and it shut straight away and did a deep clean.

“It does feel a little bit like the blanket restrictions just don’t seem to fit pubs like us.”

Mr Elliot says he isn’t aware of any Pateley pubs that are re-opening.

“Covid had already taken all the enjoyment out of running a pub because we spend more time telling customers off for doing wrong things rather than asking how their day is. Now it’s taken the profitability out of it.

“Eat Out to Help Out was really good but since then it’s just slowly dwindled.

“If we go to tier 1 we could be OK because we could have up to six people at a table so we could have 36 people inside and 36 outside.

“We are expecting a bit of a backlash for not opening when we could but I don’t think people realise it isn’t financially viable.”

The Stray Ferret asked Julian Smith, whose Skipton and Ripon constituency includes Pateley Bridge, what his message was for small businesses struggling in tier two and whether he supported the government approach. He had not replied by time of publication.

 

 

 

 

‘Time to hand Harrogate Nightingale back to council’

One of the Harrogate district’s most senior politicians has said the time has come to accept the Harrogate Nightingale hospital will never be used for covid and handed back.

Lord Newby, the Liberal Democrats leader in the House of Lords, said the NHS should let Harrogate District Council take back control of the building.

Lord Newby spoke to the Stray Ferret after receiving what he described as “non answers” to a series of questions he submitted to the government about staffing and bed capacity at the Nightingales in Harrogate, Sunderland and Manchester.

He asked how many nurses were required and was told by the Conservative peer Lord Bethell that “each Nightingale team has been developing a clinical model that can be scaled up as and when additional capacity is required in the region”.

Lord Newby said last month he doubted the Harrogate Nightingale had the staff to fully open and has now said:

“The only conclusions which one can draw are that the NHS has no firm plans to staff up the Harrogate Nightingale.

“If it were ever to be used for covid patients, it would obviously have to be staffed by existing staff now working in regional hospitals – all of which are already stretched – and cannot easily release doctors and nurses..

“I do not therefore believe that the facility in Harrogate will ever be used for covid and that the government should now accept this reality and hand the site back to the council.”

‘Flawed concept’

The government has described the Nightingales as “insurance policies”. But with the peak of the second wave of the pandemic believed to have passed, and a vaccine on its way, the chances of them being used have receded.

Lord Newby said the concept of using the Nightingale was “flawed from the start”. He added:

“The government should instead have looked at ways in which it could have freed up facilities in existing NHS facilities to allow for greater intake of covid patients, if this had been required.”

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The Stray Ferret has requested interviews with the NHS about the Harrogate Nightingale, which was set up to treat covid patients in Yorkshire and the Humber, on numerous occasions but so far has not received one.

A spokesperson for the hospital said in a statement:

“The NHS Nightingale Yorkshire and the Humber is getting ready to care for patients should it be needed and has been operating a clinical imaging service since June to support local trusts in delivering diagnostic and surveillance CT scans, with more than 3,000 patients having now been seen at the clinic.”

Lord Newby replied:

“‘Getting ready’ is very different from ‘being ready’. The fact they’ve got a scanner there is irrelevant. The are plenty of other sites in Yorkshire where they could have put this.”