A retired Harrogate firefighter has volunteered to go to Ukraine to help firefight in the war against Russian invasion.

Bruce Reid , who worked in the field for over thirty years, got in touch with the Ukrainian Embassy after seeing the crisis in the country to see if his skills could be put to use.

After successfully applying to join the war effort, he booked his own flights to Poland where he will meet with international assistance to be stationed wherever he is needed in Ukraine.

Mr Reid is due to fly tomorrow afternoon.

Despite retiring two years ago, he wanted to use his skills to aid people;

“I have no idea what I’ll be doing until I get there but I just wanted to use my thirty years in the service to offer aid.

I’m going into the unknown really.”

He is currently unsure how long he will stay in Ukraine but has reassured his family that he will only carry out his duty as a firefighter;

“I can’t be sure that I’ll get there and they’ll ask me to firefight, but if they ask me to fight I’ll be saying no.

I told my family that if I’m not needed as a firefighter I’ll be coming back home.”

He announced his decision on Facebook alongside this picture of his old kit;

Friends and family in the comments expressed their admiration for his decision;

“That is an amazing thing to do Bruce, your family must be proud and scared in equal measure”

“What a fantastic thing to do. Well done and stay safe out there.”

“You are a remarkable person Bruce! We will all miss you but know it’s what you need to do!”

Read more

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In 2015, Mr Reid was awarded an MBE for his services both as a firefighter and for charity.

In 2020, the Stray Ferret reported on how he and fellow firefighters in Harrogate cooked over 50 meals for residents in need. 

The Stray Ferret will be in touch with Mr Reid as much as possible to report on his volunteering work and let you know how he is.

Harrogate Borough Council has presented the Motor Neurone Disease Association with £15,000, raised through recycling metals recovered from cremations.

The Yorkshire Dales branch of the MNDA was presented with the cheque on Thursday.

Every six months the council picks a charity to raise money for by recycling metals such as coffin parts and replacement joints, with consent from families.

Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a condition that attacks the nerves and spine to stop muscle movements. It kills more than half diagnosed within two years and there is currently no cure.

The Yorkshire Dales branch of the association is one of eighty across the country providing care for those with the illness and researching potential cures.

Councillor Andy Paraskos said;

“I’d like to thank those families who, during a difficult time, have consented to us recycling metals recovered. By raising this money, everyone involved has done their bit to helping local charities such as Motor Neurone Disease Association.”

The council has used this scheme in the past to raise money for charities such as Dementia Forward who received £10,000 in 2020.

Jenn Dodd, regional fundraiser for the MNDA, added;

“Without generous donations like this one from Harrogate Borough Council the Yorkshire Dales Branch and MND Association simply would not be able to provide its vital support services, fund research to find a cure and campaign and raise awareness of MND.”

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Three ponds have been built and filled at Long Lands Common with the hopes of encouraging newt habitation.

The ponds began construction in late January after planning permission was granted for the project.

It is unclear how long it will take before the ponds become inhabited by Great Crested Newts as migration will occur naturally over time.

The project was completed in collaboration with the Wildlife Trust and Natural England which helped to fund it.

It is part of a larger scheme which began in 2020 when a group of stakeholders bought the land to create Harrogate’s first common wildlife area between Bogs Lane and Bilton Lane and prevent development.

Read more

• Bogs lane to be resurfaced this month
• Three newt ponds to be built at Long Lands Common

The common was opened to the public in summer 2021.

Long Lands Common secretary Chris Kitson said:

“The pond building was the first step to transform the area from a farm to a nature reserve, we’ve got a lot lined up to make the area more biodiverse.”

The group has also just finalised their woodland creation plan which involves the planting of trees and a variety of plants. They hope to begin a large scale scheme of planting in Autumn of this year.

In 2020, around 3,000 people bought shares in the land. The appeal raised £375,000 to purchase 30 acres of land near the Nidderdale Greenway and protect it from development.

An official open day was held on the land for people who pledged money in July.

The Harrogate district is responding to war in Ukraine by setting up various schemes to help those affected.

If you know of an initiative to provide help or support run by a person, charity, church, community group or business, let us know by calling the newsroom on 01423276197 or by emailing us at contact@thestrayferret.co.uk.

6.36pm: Ex-Ripon student’s video shows huge queues leaving Ukraine

Former Ripon Grammar School student Lewis Edwards has sent this video showing the huge queue of traffic at the Ukraine border waiting to get into Slovakia.

He and his partner Tanya Bogdanovska have managed to escape Ukraine and plan to set up a refugee shelter in Slovakia.

You can read more about their situation here and contribute to their gofundme page, which has now raised more than £4,000, here.

6pm: Ripon MP Julian Smith praises Shell decision

Skipton and Ripon Conservative MP has tweeted his support of a decision by Shell to abandon its joint ventures with Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Good decision by @Shell – hopefully they will be able to get further UKG support for their various projects focused on UK energy security and net zero https://t.co/E7k90qagyP

— Julian Smith MP (@JulianSmithUK) February 28, 2022

5.39pm: Hampsthwaite Church taking donations

St Thomas a Becket Church in Hampsthwaite is open for donations from 10am until 4pm until noon on Thursday when anything collected will be shipped to Poland.

Church member Jud Charlesworth offered to take in donations for those who can’t get to Harrogate’s Sowa Polish Shop after seeing their campaign on Facebook.

Since posting just yesterday the church has been inundated with donations; but the drive now has access to a storage unit so can continue to take items.

The church has asked that items be left in the baptistry area just by the main entrance.

4.58pm: Andrew Jones MP signs letter calling for ‘fullest possible support’ for refugees

Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones has issued a statement calling for as much support as possible for Ukrainian refugees.

Mr Jones said in a statement, which can be read in full here:

“The international community has come together to support Ukraine. Significant and growing sanctions have been imposed. I strongly agree with this. Sanctions are not consequence-free for the nations imposing them. Prices will rise here; our markets will suffer; there will be other consequences. But it is the right thing to do and we must hold fast to our resolve.

“And now, most importantly, we have to protect and support those fleeing this violence. Help has been provided to Ukraine directly, and to neighbouring countries to help with the influx of refugees they are facing and more Ukrainians with family members now able to bring them here. But we can and should go further.

“Today I have co-signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for the fullest possible support for Ukrainian refugees. The letter says:

‘We urge the UK government to provide as much support as possible to our European partners who are currently the first safe havens for Ukrainian refugees, namely Poland, Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. We also hope our Ministers will seek a flexible and pragmatic approach to those Ukrainians wishing to seek temporary refuge in the UK until it is safe to return to their lives in their home country.‘

‘The United Kingdom cannot flag or fail, our message must be clear: Ukrainian victims of war seeking refuge are welcome.‘”

2.46pm: Harrogate to host 24-hour vigil tomorrow

A 24-hour vigil will begin at the war memorial in Harrogate tomorrow to show support with Ukraine in its war with Russia.

The vigil, which has been organised by Christopher and Lindis Percy, will start at 10am.

Further details are available here.

12.49pm: Ex-Ripon student’s gofundme page raises £3,400 so far

Former Ripon Grammar School student Lewis Edwards, 33, and Tanya Bogdanovska, 30, (pictured) hope to cross the border from Ukraine to Slovakia today and set up a shelter to help fellow refugees.

A gofundme page set up by Mr Edwards’ family has generated £3,400 so far.

You can read more here.

12.00pm: Two houses full of donations in Boroughbridge 

Some of the donated items.

A Boroughbridge activist has teamed up with a local homeless shelter to collect donations for victims of the Ukraine invasion.

Laura Hutton, who runs the Facebook page Boroughbridge Chatter, has encouraged people to contact her on the page to arrange to send items. She said the emphasis was on essential items, such as baby items and pet food.

She said the response so far had been overwhelming, with two houses full of donations.

Ms Hutton said:

“Social media can bring a lot of hatred at times but people really rally around when help is needed. I want to thank everyone as I’m amazed by their generosity.”

Ms Hutton usually works alongside Sally Umpleby and Nik Noble in Boroughbridge’s shelter for vulnerable citizens. They collect food bank donations and make gift packages for those in need at Christmas.

11.36am: Sowa Polish shop overwhelmed by donations

Some of the donations.

A Polish shop in Harrogate has been overwhelmed with donations after encouraging people to give items for Ukrainian refugees.

Joanna Papros, from Sowa Polish shop, posted online on Saturday asking for people to drop off donations and has since received a huge response.

She has asked people to temporarily halt donations until it finds somewhere to store items, which will be sent to Poland for refugees arriving in the country.

Ms Papros told the Stray Ferret;

“I only expected a small response but people have been dropping off items from all over the county.”

While they have no storage to collect further items right now, the shop owners hope to get storage in the wider area and open donations back up.

Harrogate Choral Society will welcome back one of its former longstanding conductors for a farewell concert this month.

Andrew Padmore was musical director of the society since 2005 until his retirement last year. But he has agreed to return to the Royal Hall on March 19 for a final performance.

The concert, which has been in the works since 2020 when it was postponed due to covid, includes Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Rossini’s Stabat Mater.

Soloists include Sarah Power (soprano), Stephen Gadd (bass), Clare McCaldin (mezzo) and Austin Gunn (tenor). They will be accompanied by the choir and Manchester Camerata orchestra.

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The society is a mixed age, voice choir which has been running since the 19th Century.

Paul Jackson, co-chair of the choir, said;

“We are very pleased that Andrew is returning for this farewell concert, which includes, as Rossini himself rightly said, ‘music of the finest quality’. This will be an exciting evening.”

Tickets are £25 or £5 for concessions and can be bought from the box office at Harrogate Theatre.

The Stray Ferret is to launch a daily business news feature for the Harrogate district.

Business Breakfast will start tomorrow and be published every weekday at 5am. It will bring together all business information for the district including appointments, contracts, awards and financial performance news.

Later this week, The Stray Ferret will celebrate its second birthday – it launched just before the first lockdown in March 2020 at a time when local businesses were in turmoil as shops and venues closed and everyone left the office to work from home.

The Stray Ferret director Tamsin O’Brien says, as the district slowly returns to normality, now is the time to produce a comprehensive roundup of daily business news.

She said:

“During the first two years of our existence we were preoccupied with covering the covid pandemic in the best way we could for the district. We reported continually on how the crisis impacted on businesses and the local economy.

“Now that we’re coming out of covid, we wanted to create a daily round-up of all local business news that we hope will become a must-read before work.”

Since its launch the Stray Ferret has seen rapid growth. In January this year the website had 210,000 readers and more than a million pages were viewed. It has a highly engaged social media following of more than 23,000 people and in December The Stray Ferret app was launched which already has 3,000 regular users.

If you would like your businesses’ news to be included — send us the information to contact@thestrayferret.co.uk

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A Nidderdale landowner has been awarded a grant to set up a curlew conservation project.

Clive White, who has farmed in Darley for 35 years, received the grant from the Farming in Protected Landscapes programme run by Nidderdale AONB.

The programme is funded by the government’s Agricultural Transition Plan.

It supports schemes that promote nature recovery, mitigate the impacts of climate change, provide better access or engagement with the land, or increase the business resilience of nature friendly farms.

The Darley Beck Curlew Project will aim to reduce curlew egg and chick losses to predators and farming techniques.

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Farmers who have signed up will permit bird surveyors to perform studies on their land on the success of curlew breeding in the area and the effects of predation and farming activities, such as silage.

They will then consult to find out what needs to be done to help the curlews and how much it will cost.

Mr White said;

“Most of the farmers who have joined this cluster, especially the older ones, have noticed the decline in curlew numbers over the last three or four decades and are willing to find out how they might be able to help reverse this decline.”

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He will be working in partnership with Nidderdale’s FIPL officer, Matthew Trevelyan, who said;

“As a farmer, I know that if these projects are farmer-led, it will be of great advantage. My experience of this fund to date is that, with a little imagination and passion, it can be used to support brilliant and realistic projects that partner farmers with ecologists and conservation organisations.”

Curlews have been listed as ‘near threatened’ on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species since 2008.

Participants aim to have the conservation project up and running in time for this year’s breeding season.

Large swathes of The Stray in Harrogate remain flooded today after heavy rainfall from Storm Franklin.

The Stray underwent major repairs two years ago to improve drainage in the area near the Prince of Wales roundabout.

But that area, and many others, is under water, raising questions about what, if anything, can be done to improve matters.

The Stray Defence Association, which has campaigned to safeguard the Stray since the 1930s, posted on its Facebook page:

“Clearly there is a major unresolved problem on West Park Stray, whatever certain people say.

“Looking at the dire state of West Park Stray today this has never been the case over decades past … when in winter we often had 5/6 feet of accumulated snow melting on a regular basis as well as heavy rain.

“Tree roots are standing in water much of the time now, not just over this weekend. This is an environmental disaster in the making.”

£160,000 repairs ‘not money well spent’

Judy Darcy-Thompson, chair of the Stray Defence Association told the Stray Ferret.

“£160,000 was spent on repairs in 2019 and it was not money well spent since we’re still seeing flooding of this level.”

“There is also a concern about the number of trees being cut down around the area … these were protecting the area from floods, and the situation is only getting worse.”

Harrogate Borough Council, which is the protector of the Stray, was forced to repair the Stray in 2019 after the UCI World Championships caused extensive damage.

We reached out to the council for comment but did not receive a response.

Read more

• West Park Stray — 12 months of mud, repair and debate
• LIVE: Flooding clean up begins across Harrogate district

Locals also expressed their concerns over vehicles causing damage to the Stray after a van got stuck in the grass on Saturday afternoon.

https://twitter.com/HellyR1/status/1495077805964595201?s=20&t=wkvUuA4vc2wJodk1iPXEIA

Ms Darcy-Thompson said:

“These images have gone to the council and I have suggested that the driver pays for the damages they have done.”

Knaresborough residents and business owners have begun to assess the damage caused by Storm Franklin after many were forced to evacuate their homes due to flooding.

The storm brought heavy rainfall to the area over the weekend and caused the banks of the River Nidd to break, leaving many houses in the surrounding area at risk.

Samantha Small, landlady at Mother Shipton’s Inn along the river, discussed damage to the business after the cellar flooded;

“We’ve managed to save the drinks but we’re going to have to lose at least half of our dry storage.

“Thankfully we were able to stay open yesterday but all of our electrics have gone. The outside area will definitely be closed today.”

Fears rose as she also lives on-site, so risked damage to her home. She added:

“We didn’t sleep much, particularly as it was pretty loud all night.”

Ms Small hopes that the pub can open inside today with little damage to business.

Read more

• Flooding brings severe problems to Harrogate district
• Knaresborough cafe owner speaks of flood devastation

Meanwhile, Margaret Pearson, a resident of Nidderdale Lodge Park, was evacuated to Dower House Hotel on Saturday morning;

“You just have to leave as soon as it begins … some of our neighbours who haven’t lived through it before got stuck in their house and we had to call the fire brigade.

“We’ve lost a few things from the garden but hopefully they’ll show up in someone else’s.”

She has now been able to return to her home since the River Nidd passed its peak level yesterday afternoon.

The water level of the River Nidd is now reported to be falling and only light rainfall is expected, however the River Ure is expected to peak today.

The Stray Ferret has launched a free mobile app to make our news stories and content more accessible for regular readers.

You can find the Stray Ferret app in the Apple app store or on Google Play. Click on the box below to download it.

The app gives people who have Apple iPhones and iPads the option to get notifications of news stories from around the district – which has not previously been possible.

The move to create the Stray Ferret app shows a significant investment in the Stray Ferret which has seen a rapid growth in its readership and social media engagement since it launched in March 2020.

In October the Stray Ferret saw record figures with more than 900,000 page views and more than 170,000 users.

Commercially the website’s advertising space sold out for the first time this month as local businesses began to spend on marketing again after the uncertainty and disruption of the covid pandemic.

Tamsin O’Brien, director of the Stray Ferret said:

“We hope the app will mean readers find us easier to access and use us more frequently.  The decision to launch a Stray Ferret app was driven by the requests of our readers who have continually asked us to create one.

“The Stray Ferret has become the go-to online news service in the Harrogate district. We are delighted to launch this app and hope people download it and check it out regularly to get all the latest news and information in the district.”