Homes evacuated in Starbeck due to fire

Homes have been evacuated in Starbeck as firefighters battle a blaze that broke out this evening.

Two people are being treated for smoke inhalation but there are no reports of any further injuries at this time.

The fire, in Avenue Grove, was reported to North Yorkshire Police at about 8.20pm tonight.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and Yorkshire Ambulance Service are in attendance.

The area has been cordoned off.

A police statement said:

“Members of the public are advised to avoid the area while emergency services deal with the incident.”

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Appeal to find dead Harrogate man’s next of kin

The North Yorkshire coroner’s office is appealing for help to locate the next of kin of 53-year-old Craig Fryer from Harrogate.

Mr Fryer died at his home in Woodfield Road, Bilton on March 15 and officers have been unable to trace his next of kin.

It is believed he has two daughters, one in Australia and one in the south of England. However, it is unknown exactly where.

North Yorkshire Police said in a statement today:

“If you are Craig’s daughter or have information that could help find them, please contact our coroner’s office via email to coroner@northyorkshire.police.uk.”

Police said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Mr Fryer’s death.

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Markington shopkeeper overwhelmed by villagers’ birthday surprises

A popular shopkeeper who has gone the extra mile to help villagers during covid was flooded with presents on her 60th birthday today.

Lynn Raffle, who has owned Markington Post Office and General Store for seven years, said she was overwhelmed by the show of affection.

She told the Stray Ferret:

“I feel totally blessed. Balloons were hung outside the shop, I’ve received a portrait of my dog who died last year, I’ve been given Prosecco, a bracelet and six bouquets of flowers — it’s amazing.”

Karen Moss, who painted the portrait, said Ms Raffle had been the beating heart of the village, which is between Harrogate and Ripon, over the last 12 months:

“She has organised provisions for people who couldn’t go to the supermarket.

“She organised a group of volunteers to pick up prescriptions and do any other errands, she was there for whatever people needed.

“She’s a real unsung hero who looks out for everyone, she’s just a really lovely lady that needs to be recognised.”

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Another Markington resident, Meg Nelson, said:

“It always cheers me up popping in to get my bits and having a chat and a giggle with Lynn.

“Thank you for doing such an amazing job of providing us all with a shop and getting hold of anything people request during these hard times.”

Ms Raffle was a cook in the village school for 14 years before taking over the post office.

She works seven days a week, rising at 5.30am every weekday and being in the shop an hour later until 6.15pm at night. She joked:

“I get a lie-in until 6.30am on Sundays.”

The shop was built in 1846 as a chapel and has had many purposes since.

Many old features remain, including meat hooks from its time as a butcher’s shop. Ms Raffle said:

“It’s been the best day ever. I can’t remember a day like it since I went on the Orient Express when I was 50.”

Phoebe Graham to promote women and girls at Harrogate Cricket Club

Professional cricketer Phoebe Graham has agreed to become Harrogate Cricket Club’s ambassador for women and girls’ cricket.

Graham, who is contracted to Yorkshire County Cricket Club and the Northern Diamonds, will provide regular girls coaching.

She will also act as a consultant to the club on how to expand its number of female players and grow the game in the Harrogate district.

Graham, who is a fast bowler and qualified coach, will advise the club on formulating a schools’ programme to encourage more girls to take up cricket and help it work with other clubs in the area to promote women and girls’ cricket.

The club currently includes about 25 girls, whose season is due to start next month.

For the first time ever, Harrogate’s girls’ section has entered a team in to the Nidderdale under-13 boys league this summer.

Graham, who also runs a gender equality consultancy, will now build on work done by head junior coach Andy Hawkswell, along with Nat Crossland and Tim Robinson to further develop the girls’ section.

Club chairman Steve Clark said:

“This new partnership is an incredibly exciting one. We hope it will be a long-lasting relationship that ensures that women and girls’ cricket continues to grow and thrive in Harrogate.”

Graham said:

“Providing women and girls with opportunities to play sport is something that I am extremely passionate about and I love Harrogate’s commitment and long-term ambitions to grow the female section.”

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Harrogate Nightingale dismantling begins

Work has begun to dismantle Harrogate’s Nightingale hospital – almost a year after it was built at a cost of more than £27m.

The temporary 500-bed site was set up at Harrogate Convention Centre in April last year to cope with a surge of coronavirus cases but it has not treated a single virus patient during the pandemic.

NHS England announced this month the emergency hospital would close at the start of April and a spokesperson has now confirmed contractors have started removing medical equipment from the venue.

“The phased dismantling of NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber has begun.

“The removal of some larger pieces of equipment will require road closures which will be advertised through the appropriate channels in due course.”

The emergency hospital was one of seven built in England and although it did not treat a single coronavirus patient, it was used for non-virus diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments.

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Earlier this month, the NHS described the network of Nightingale hospitals as the “ultimate insurance policy” as it announced each of the sites, apart from those in London and Sunderland which will stay open for vaccinations, will close next month.

Health officials also said it was a “success” that the Harrogate site was not needed but there are questions over how it would have been staffed, with councillors on the West Yorkshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee this week launching an investigation into why the facility was not used for covid patients.

Councillor Jim Clark, the Conservative chairman of North Yorkshire County Council, said there are “questions to be answered” and “lessons we can learn” around the Nightingale.

He told the health committee on Monday:

“We need to know how we would have staffed it, what capacity it would have been able to provide, where the staff would have come from and what effect that would have had on services within the rest of Yorkshire.”

It remains unclear how long the dismantling of the hospital will take and how much it will cost.

However, Paula Lorimer, director of the council-owned convention centre, previously said she was “confident” it will be ready for events to return on 21 June when all restrictions on social distancing are due to be lifted.

 

Independent Harrogate fears Station Gateway could damage economy

A group representing 187 Harrogate businesses has expressed concern the proposed £7.9 million Station Gateway could damage the local economy.

In its submission to the gateway consultation, which ends tomorrow, Independent Harrogate said it was ‘broadly supportive’ of the scheme’s aim to promote sustainable transport.

But it added Harrogate’s hospitality and retail sector was in a ‘fragile and critical state’ and it had ‘serious concerns’ about the scheme’s economic impact.

Robert Ogden, writing on behalf of Independent Harrogate, said it therefore opposed plans to reduce traffic on Station Parade to one lane, or to pedestrianise James Street. He added the group believed East Parade to be the best location for cycling lanes.

The submission said the town needed an updated infrastructure masterplan rather than ‘pocket planning’. Such a plan should include park and ride schemes, numerous electric car charging points and extensive cycling routes, it added.

It said Harrogate Borough Council‘s current masterplan, devised in 2016, was out of date and doesn’t cater for outlying villages, which don’t have regular bus services and don’t benefit from the focus on cycling. The submission said:

“Both North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council are effectively discriminating against village residents and creating a playground for Harrogate residents only, many of whom will happily get into their cars and drive to work in Leeds and other areas.”

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The submission said Independent Harrogate was not anti-cycling, adding it would support initiatives such as Cycling Sundays, whereby some central Harrogate streets were closed to traffic to encourage walking and cycling. It added:

“This cautious approach would help gauge the appetite for cycling in Harrogate without too much detrimental economic impact.”

But overall it said town centre visitors arriving by car ‘need easy access and somewhere convenient and close to the shops/cafes/restaurants to park’, adding:

“To ignore the considerable income that visitors bring will be hugely damaging and they should not be excluded from any surveys, which sadly appears to be the case at the moment.”

The government’s Transforming Cities Fund has provided funding for the gateway project, to improve the design of the town and encourage more sustainable transport.

North Yorkshire County Council, Harrogate Borough Council and West Yorkshire Combined Authority are delivering the initiative.

Read the full letter from Independent Harrogate here.

Police image of man wanted after Ripon theft

Police have issued a CCTV image of a man they would like to speak to following a theft from Sainsbury’s in Ripon Market Place.

A man entered the store and took about £500 of printer ink. It happened at about 4pm on March 1.

Officers believe the man in the image has information that could help the investigation and are asking anyone who recognises him to get in touch.

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Anyone with any information can contact North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option 2 and ask for PC 733 Mitchell or email Elliot.Mitchell@northyorkshire.police.uk.

If you wish to remain anonymous, you can pass information to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Please quote reference number 12210069492 when passing on information.

Plans in for 2,000-job business park near Knaresborough

The developers behind a new business park near Knaresborough that could create up to 2,000 jobs have formally submitted proposals.

Opus North and Bridges Fund Management have sent plans to Harrogate Borough Council to transform a 45-acre site into a mixed-use development designed to support offices, logistics operators and tech firms.

The site – to be called Harrogate 47 – is located at Flaxby near junction 47 of the A1(M) and was acquired by the developers in October last year.

It is allocated as the main strategic employment site in the council’s Local Plan and already has existing planning permission for more than half a million square feet of employment space.

The new plans include up to 130,000 sq ft of office accommodation, about 75,000 sq ft of tech starter units and approximately 430,000 sq ft for logistics and warehouses.

A spokesperson for the developers said the existing planning permission allows for the commencement of the site’s enabling works so it can be made “oven-ready” for the main construction to start as soon as the new consent is granted.

Guy Bowden, a partner at Bridges Fund Management, added:

“As Harrogate 47 is such an important site with immense potential to make a significant economic contribution to the local area, we are keen to maintain momentum and as such are commencing preparatory works.

“The work being undertaken will ensure that the plots are ready for construction to begin, which could be as early as summer 2021, and our appointed agents are already in detailed discussions with potential occupiers who have expressed an interest in the scheme.”

The appointed industrial agents for Harrogate 47 are CBRE and Gent Visick, with the office enquiries directed to the office agency teams at CBRE.

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Oliver Freer, from CBRE’s northern planning team, which prepared the planning application, said:

“The new masterplan for Junction 47 responds to the market demand for employment accommodation for office, hi-tech/hybrid and logistics uses in this location, and is in accordance with the land allocation of the site.

“A successful consent would allow much-needed commercial space to be delivered, enabling local companies to stay and attracting new inward investment into the district, whilst unlocking the potential for some 2,000 new local jobs.”

Ryan Unsworth, development director of Opus North, added:

“We have been working hard with our appointed consultancy team and key stakeholders since we acquired the site to progress a masterplan that would maximise the job-creating potential of the site whilst addressing current and anticipated regional demand for sustainable office and industrial accommodation.

“We are confident that our application captures these aspects and look forward to seeing the initial works start on site to facilitate development.”

Stray Views: Harrogate needs to embrace traffic-reduction schemes
Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. See below for details on how to contribute.

We must accept plans that reduce car use

Of course the Station Gateway plans for Harrogate will cause some traffic congestion, but how else do we move towards less use of the car?
As the population increases we cannot continue with today’s use of cars. The roads are not big enough, the car parks are full, and we have global warming threatening to melt the polar ice and flood many parts of the UK.
So I welcome a ‘one lane’ Station Parade with paving and plants and space to sit and chat. We need to make changes to make using a car less desirable. That’s why petrol and diesel are heavily taxed, and that tax needs to be increased.
We need to travel less, work nearer to home, work from home, shop nearer to home, go on holiday nearer to home. And when we need to travel, we will use walking, cycling, buses and trains. This is why some of the proposed changes today encourage cycling and do not cater for increased numbers of cars.

The change won’t happen overnight, and us older people might still use cars most of the time. The car will still have a place, but the car must not continue to dominate. It is interesting that my two grandchildren are in no hurry to learn to drive. They are both old enough to drive and have been passengers in cars all of their lives, but it seems they have a different view on things.

Andrew Willoughby, Knaresborough

Litter blights our beautiful Stray 

The Stray is looking better and better now. But there is an amount of rubbish lying around, especially beside the green huts.
Could there not be a bin next to these huts?  Also, why are some of the bins placed side by side, next to each other, leaving large areas on the Stray with no facilities at all?
And we older people would welcome more seats around the Stray, as well, please.
We hope for a sunny summer!
Sheila Macdonald, Harrogate

Repair the green shelters on West Park Stray

I travel on the West Park Stray on a daily basis and my heart sinks every time I pass the two semi-derelict shelters.

They have never had any repair or maintenance on them apart from being decorated in an awful green colour. What do visitors think when they encounter them? What were wonderful shelters have become, on Harrogate Borough Council’s watch, unsightly.

Because of their leaning structure they are also becoming unsafe and could be lost to the town. Has the council any scheduled plans in place for refurbishment before the shelters fall down?

Ken Richardson, Harrogate

Got an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

Queen Victoria will remain on her plinth in Harrogate

The statue of Queen Victoria that has watched over Harrogate since 1887 is set to remain.

Local historian Malcolm Neesam raised concerns the white marble monument could be moved as part of the £7.9 million Station Gateway project.

The project, funded by the government’s Transforming Cities Fund, will radically transform Station Parade, where the statue is located.

A consultation document asks for views on moving the monument, which put the issue on the agenda and prompted Mr Neesam’s concerns.

But at a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Committee yesterday, councillors put the matter to bed.

Aidan Rayner, Transforming Cities Fund delivery manager at the county council, said the monument was included in initial proposals to get peoples’ views.

However, he added that it will no longer be included in any future consultation and that there was no plans to move it.

He said:

“I can be very clear that it is not required to move it and currently there are no plans to move it as part of these proposals.”

Cllr Don Mackenzie, executive member of access at the county council, told the committee:

“There is certainly no intention on our part to move the monument. I am very cognisant of Malcolm Neesam’s views on that.”

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Mr Neesam welcomed the news and suggested railings, which were removed from the monument in 1941, should be restored. He said:

“Eighty years after the government encouraged Harrogate to remove the Victoria monument’s decorative railings which marked the site boundary, it really is about time they were restored. Is this too much to ask?”

Richard Ellis inserted several covenants into the deed of gift when he presented the statue to the town, requiring that if any attempt were made to move it, the land should be offered back to the Ellis family.