North Yorkshire Council launches investigation into rising number of empty homes

North Yorkshire Council has announced a probe into why the number of empty homes in the county continues to rise.

Cllr Simon Myers, the council’s executive member for culture, arts and housing, said it was “distressing” that 6,500 people were on waiting lists for social housing in a county where more than 3,000 properties were standing empty.

An officer’s report to a meeting of the council’s leading members highlighted how at the end of June there were nearly 900 empty homes in the Harrogate borough area and more than 700 in Scarborough borough, while there were 500-plus empty homes in the Craven and Hambleton areas.

Both Richmondshire and Ryedale had nearly 400 empty homes and there were more than 200 in the Selby area.

The investigation comes as the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which is at the report stage in the House of Lords, moves to reduce the minimum period councils can charge a premium for empty premises from two years to one year.

It is almost a year since North Yorkshire Council adopted a policy to implement a 100 per cent council tax premium for empty premises that have been left unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for a year or more, from April next year.

The report added demand for affordable housing was set to rise as residents struggle with mortgage payments and rental costs, and fuelled by a forecast downturn in housebuilding completions, changes to planning policy, rising material costs and wider economic pressures linked to the cost of living.

The report stated: 

“Maintaining a robust affordable homes programme is essential to meet this future demand.”

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After being pressed on how the council intended to bring empty homes back into use, Cllr Myers told the meeting empty properties represented some 1.1% of housing stock in North Yorkshire, while the national average is one per cent and the average for Yorkshire and Humber is 1.6%.

He said: 

“It’s distressing when you have 6,500 people on housing waiting lists in North Yorkshire, to know that there are over 3,000 empty properties.

“In Yorkshire and Humber terms, we’re at the lower end of the scale. However, it is not something we want to read about when we know the pressures on people finding housing.”

Cllr Myers said causes behind the rise in empty properties may include the economy, leading to properties not selling quickly, and changes in legislation leading landlords to take properties out of the rental market.

He said the authority was having to develop a county-wide strategy as some boroughs and districts had tackled the issue, going as far as compulsory purchases, some did not have a strategy and only Scarborough and Harrogate had designated empty homes officers.

Pledging to “get to the bottom of it and work out a strategy about what can be done”, Cllr Myers added: 

“You can’t help but look at the waiting lists for affordable housing and consider the question of empty homes and think something has to be done here. So we’ve got our eyes on it.”

Harrogate autism school could save £4m a year

A proposal to convert a former Harrogate primary school into a secondary school for 80 autistic children could save up to £4 million over five years, it has emerged.

North Yorkshire Council’s ruling executive will next week discuss the findings of a six-week consultation into proposals to spend £3.5 million repurposing Woodfield Community Primary School.

A report on the consultation, published before the meeting, revealed considerable support for the scheme, with 86 per cent of 105 responses in favour.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Councillor Paul Haslam, a Conservative who represents Bilton and Nidd Gorge, said the proposal was a good outcome.

He said:

“The community was severely disappointed when the primary school closed, however we are delighted a new school will be here to provide provision for children with special educational needs.

“It’s a great green location with good air quality and facilities and as the primary school had 50 per cent special needs pupils, the area is used to providing that type of care.”

Special needs rocketing

Since 2016, the number of children in North Yorkshire with identified special educational needs and disability and a legally-binding education, health and care plan has increased by more than 110 per cent, leading to a shortage of special school places and numerous children being taught by independent providers.

As independent day sector placements typically cost the public purse up to £70,000 annually and the average cost of a special school placement is about £23,000.

The council is therefore forecasting savings of up to £4 million over the first five years of the new school.

Woodfield School

Woodfield school closed in December.

Woodfield school closed at the end of last year, with the council claiming it had “exhausted all options” after years of falling pupil numbers and an inadequate Ofsted rating. It is hoped the new school will open in September next year.

Numerous consultation respondents said the specialist school was “desperately” needed in the area, with one parent highlighting how their child had to travel to Darlington for autism provision.

Respondents said many children with autism failed to do as well as they could because they were not in the correct setting to flourish.

A headteacher of a local primary school, who is not named, told the consultation:

“This is very good news indeed, especially when we consider the number of pupils attending private placements alongside the skyrocketing levels of need. It is very good to feel heard by the local authority.”

Some respondents questioned whether the funding should have been focused on improving or extending other specialist schools, including Springwater School in Starbeck and the Forest School in Knaresborough, with one claiming it was “too little too late for the academic autistic community”.

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Barn conversion ‘free for all’ could lead to ‘destruction’ of Dales, say national park leaders

National park leaders have criticised a government proposal to allow landowners to redevelop barns in protected landscapes into homes without planning consent.

Leading officers at both the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks have said the potential relaxation of the planning system outlined in a Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities consultation were very concerning.

National park bosses are dismayed a proposal to give farmers permitted development rights on barns has resurfaced less than a decade after the government abandoned the same proposal amid an outcry.

In 2014, park authorities and MPs raised concerns about the suburbanisation of rural areas if a swathe of barns was turned into homes, saying the proposal flew in the face of protecting national parks.

Impetus for the latest proposal has been linked to the government abandoning housing targets and an attempt to find ways to increase housebuilding in the face of a national housing shortage.

The consultation states: 

“Allowing our town and village centres within protected landscapes (such as national parks) to benefit from the right could help ensure the longer-term viability and vitality of these community hubs, supporting the residents and businesses that rely on them.

“We also want to support the agricultural sector by providing further flexibilities to farmers to undertake works on their agricultural units and enable farm diversification without having to submit a planning application.”

Chris France, director of planning at the North York Moors National Park Authority, said agricultural buildings played a key contribution to cultural heritage of the country’s national parks.

He said: 

“We don’t say you can’t do anything with them, but the whole point in having a planning system in a protected landscape is to carefully control those changes.

“The proposal to take barn conversions outside the planning process completely disenfranchises local populations, neighbours and in national parks, the nation, because we wouldn’t have any input into whether we think a proposal is acceptable.

“In national parks this isn’t going to deliver more housing for local people, which is what’s needed, it will just deliver more holiday homes and destroy our finest landscapes at the same time.”

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The national park leaders said the move would do nothing to ease the need for affordable housing in either area as developers would not have any restriction on the type of homes they created.

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority chief executive David Butterworth said the proposal would mean up to 6,500 field barns across the 841sq mile area could be converted into homes, “decimating” the landscapes.

He added: 

“If I was trying to devise a policy that would essentially lead to the destruction of Yorkshire Dales national park, this would be the policy. These are permitted development rights to convert a property without any planning restriction.

“It is one of the most bonkers examples of environmental destruction I could think of. I am extremely concerned that this has been introduced now with an eight-week consultation. It is just crackers.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: 

“This consultation remains open and we will consider all responses, including that from National Parks UK, before coming to a decision. We have been clear that any developments must be beautiful and enhance the environment.”

Criticism as ‘affordable’ Yorkshire Dales national park houses marketed at up to £320,000

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority is facing criticism after it emerged properties built as part of a flagship affordable housing scheme designed to enable young people to get a “first foot on the property ladder” are being marketed at up to £320,000.

A Yorkshire Dales community leader and local families have said the shared ownership properties at The Hornblower Court development in Bainbridge, the cost of which averages at £278,000, are in no way affordable and have done nothing to ease the housing crisis in Wensleydale or the national park.

The development in the highly protected area was only given consent on condition that it delivered affordable housing.

Under the scheme, potential buyers wanting a 25% share in a £320,000 end of terrace three-bedroom property would pay a weekly rent of £126.92 while also paying off their £80,000 contribution.

The homes are being marketed under shared ownership following the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority being threatened by a neighbouring resident to the site with High Court action over its decision to approve the original scheme, which saw the most expensive property priced at £196,000.

In 2019, averting potential huge court costs, the park authority conceded £196,000 was not affordable for many local residents and started working with Broadacres Housing Association on an alternative scheme.

After the house prices were revealed, Bainbridge residents described the development as a missed opportunity to stem the departure of young people from the area.

One resident, whose name is withheld, said: 

“How can a house that was not affordable at £196,000 for 100% ownership become affordable when it now costs £320,00 for 80% ownership? It absolutely stinks.”

Upper Dales councillor Yvonne Peacock added: 

“How can anyone local possibly afford to live in them?

“If the park authority had gone ahead with the original scheme the houses would have cost up to £124,000 less than they do now. When challenged they were not brave enough to stand their ground and by members’ convictions.

“The original affordable housing scheme was passed twice, unanimously, by members and after a resident threatened a judicial review they backed down and went for affordable housing through shared ownership and look what we are left with.”

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Member champion for sustainable development at the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Richard Foster, said the authority was examining how it could ensure a range of affordable housing tenures were available in its forthcoming Local Plan.

He said: 

“We are in a desirable area and it does price the lower end of the market out.

“These houses may not be affordable to everybody, but hopefully there will be locals out there who can afford these houses.

“It is not affordable in the purest sense of the word, but it is making a type of housing affordable for people who can’t afford because they live in a national park and have a job in a national park.”

Broadacres’ director Helen Fielding said the housing association fully understand many local people in rural parts of North Yorkshire found it difficult to buy a home in their home communities because prices are so high, particularly in the national park.

She added: 

“Our shared ownership homes at Bainbridge offer people with a connection to the area the opportunity to buy as little as a ten per cent share in their home, in the first instance, for just £24,000 and then pay a subsidised rent on the remaining share.

“This means that people can get that all important first foot on the property ladder with a smaller initial deposit and in future, if their circumstances permit, they may buy additional shares in their home, further reducing the amount of rent they pay on the unsold share.

“We know how important it is to rural life for local people to find suitable homes in the communities they grow up in, and we’re committed to helping people find their forever homes close to family, friends and work.”

Taxi drivers fear criminal prosecutions amid North Yorkshire Council ‘error’

Taxi drivers say they are living in fear of facing criminal prosecutions after North Yorkshire Council’s move to unify the trade left them “plying for hire illegally”.

The council has been warned by a consultant working for taxi drivers that it has been reported to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman after failing to acknowledge it had made an error when attempting to change where taxi drivers can work earlier this year or to take any remedial action.

It follows a taxi industry expert claiming in its rush to introduce a single area for taxis across the county, the council had not followed the legal procedure to create a single hackney carriage licensing.

Earlier this year opponents of the council’s proposed taxi policy had told a meeting of the authority’s executive it would lead to the clogging up of taxis in town centres while leaving sparse cover in rural areas, particularly for wheelchair users.

A meeting of the authority’s executive heard that while a working group of elected members with significant experience of licensing had made a series of recommendations which the council’s officers had “tossed aside like a pair of old slippers” and come up with a series of different proposals.

Before the launch of North Yorkshire Council in April, taxis were licensed by the seven district and borough councils, including Harrogate Borough Council, which meant hackney carriage taxis could only ply for hire on the ranks and in the streets in the area of the district council by which they were licensed.

In the weeks after vesting day, the new licensing authority oversaw all hackney carriage taxis being able to ply for hire on all the ranks and streets of any town in North Yorkshire.

It is illegal for anyone to ply for hire in an area for which they are not licensed. On conviction, a fine of up to £2,500 may be imposed.

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Although hackney carriage taxi drivers do not expect the council would prosecute them for plying illegally, as the council has already decided it wants Hackney carriage taxis to be able to ply for hire throughout the area, drivers are concerned they might still face prosecution by the police, and fines from the courts on conviction.

Ripon cabbie Richard Fieldman, formerly a Harrogate Borough Council hackney carriage taxi driver, said drivers had only discovered the council had not followed the legal procedure after seeking a consultant’s advice.

He said the council was applying different rules to hackney carriage taxis licensed in different parts of the county, “even though we were now supposed to be one area, subject to one set of rules”.

Photo of Ripon taxi driver Richard Fieldman

Richard Fieldman, who runs his taxi in Ripon.

In a response to consultant David Wilson, of A2Z Licensing, the council said he had raised “important issues”, but added it did not agree it was facilitating the illegal operation of hackney carriages within its area.

A council spokesman said: 

“The council has been clear through its communication, consultation and within the executive report that the council intended to create a single hackney carriage zone.”

Mr Wilson said as the council has failed to acknowledge its error and to take remedial action to comply with the current legal position, in the three weeks since the situation was brought to its attention in June, trade representatives were set to report the council to the ombudsman.

Mr Wilson said: 

“Although admitting an error was made may be embarrassing for the new council and those licensing officers and lawyers involved, we are all human and make mistakes from time to time.

“What is important is that the council acknowledges its mistake and takes urgent action to comply with the law, restricting hackney carriage taxis to ply for hire in one of the former seven district council areas until such time as the council legally merges then into a single area.

“Members of the public can, however, be reassured that a hackney carriage taxi is insured, even if plying for hire illegally in an area in which it is not licensed.”

Ripon hackney carriage driver Katie Johnstone said: 

“The time has come for the council to admit it has driven a coach and horses through taxi law and to get around the table with trade representatives to work out how this situation can best be resolved.”

In response, North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director of environment, Karl Battersby, said:

“We have received the letter and are taking legal advice on the points raised. We will be responding as soon as we can.”

Council to launch ‘once in a generation’ North Yorkshire economic strategy

North Yorkshire Council is set to launch a “once in a generation” economic strategy in an effort to support growth in the county.

The authority’s proposed economic growth strategy, which will first be considered by the council’s transport, economy, environment and enterprise scrutiny committee on Monday (July 10), has been drawn up to recognise the area’s unique scale and character and reflect the diversity of its component parts.

The document states: 

“This economic growth strategy is a key milestone, marking an exciting new phase for our economy.

“One where we take the lead on tackling some of the big economic challenges of our time such as net zero and energy security, and harness our strengths to combine accelerated economic growth with a carbon negative economy and outstanding quality of life.”

The document states the proposed strategy would provide business, investors, and other partners with a clear sense of North Yorkshire’s growth ambitions.

It adds: 

“These can only be achieved by partners from all of these groups working together in partnership to realise our collective ambitions for this great place.”

A final round of consultations, to be completed this month, is focusing on feedback from councillors, council bosses, and key external stakeholders to ensure the strategy aligns closely with other council strategies and plans for the new mayoral combined authority to be launched next year.

Cllr Derek Bastiman, the authority’s executive member for open to business, said the launch of the authority in April had presented a chance for a strategy that would not have been possible with seven different district council strategies.

He said: 

“I am quite excited as this document will benefit the whole of North Yorkshire.

“When there were seven different district authorities the boundaries did not give the ease and freedom to deliver a strategy targeting specific areas like this.”

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He said it was important north-south A1 corridor and east-west A59 and A64 corridor connectivity was identified as it would be the driving force for the economy of the county.

Cllr Bastiman said: 

“We must not take our eyes off what the market towns and larger villages, along with what smaller picture postcard coastal villages offer us.

“It is extremely important we take cognisance of all the area and the peculiarities, and I mean that in the nicest of ways, of such areas are taken into account because we don’t want to leave anybody behind with this. We want to bring people with us and consult all relevant bodies throughout the whole of North Yorkshire.”

Cllr Bastiman said he hoped the mayoral combined authority would play a supportive part in what North Yorkshire was trying to achieve.

“We do know the city of York will work with us on it, which is vitally important in delivering a cohesive, well thought out plan for the whole of North Yorkshire.”

Calls for urgent action to stop North Yorkshire children vaping

Calls have been made for urgent action to tackle children vaping across North Yorkshire amid an “explosion” in young people using e-cigarettes.

A meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s children and young people’s scrutiny committee heard the authority’s annual health and wellbeing survey concluded more than one in three of children aged 13 to 15 years old had at least tried vaping, while 9% said they used them regularly.

Smoking of traditional cigarettes was continuing to decrease and the use of illegal drugs remained low, the meeting was told, but some children were starting to vape while still at primary school.

The study found some 5% of 10 and 11-year-olds pupils responded that they had at least tried vaping.

However, councillors were warned the vaping statistics in its Growing Up In North Yorkshire study were “woefully out” and the actual prevalence of vaping was likely to be much higher.

Earlier this year Dr Mike McKean, of the Royal College of Paediatricians and Child Health, said vaping was becoming “an epidemic” among teenagers.

He said if the growth of youngsters vaping continued at the same rate, almost all children would vape within five years.

Dr Tom Cavell-Taylor, who is a governor at Ripon Grammar School, told the scrutiny meeting: 

“I don’t think young people appreciate the dangers of vaping.

“Vaping was seen as a better alternative to smoking, but there is a bit of a health time bomb going on with vaping and I don’t think that message is fully appreciated with young people.”

Cllr Kirsty Poskitt, who is also a youth worker, added it was “not unusual for year five and six pupils to be vaping”.

She said: 

“What I’m really concerned with is how fast the public health is getting out. I have conversations daily with young people that vape that have no clue that it is in any way dangerous.

“The parents see it as a much better, they taste and smell nice, they’re trendy, you’re not going to have that first hacking  experience of cigarettes.

“It’s a huge explosion and it’s one of my biggest concerns with young people.”

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The meeting heard councillors call for the government to step up campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of vaping in the way that it has highlighted the risks of smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol or ban the sale of single-use vapes.

Councillors said by looking at the images in the windows of vaping shops alone, it was obvious children were being targeted.

The authority’s director of children and young people’s services, Stuart Carlton, said while he appreciated the immediate need to raise of the risks of vaping, it would be worse to launch a campaign that wasn’t accurate.

He said one of the issues with tackling vaping was that “the market moves really quickly”, so it was important to get messages precise.

Mr Carlton said: 

“I would just ban them. I think they should only be available on prescription as part of a smoking reduction programme to adults only. That’s how you get them out of the system.

“Some of the things that are giving us the most concern aren’t the ones sold in shops, it’s the illegal market. These are black market vapes with cannabinoid additions which are causing horrendous incidents to children who experiment. You can do something about vaping, but then miss the thing that’s doing to most damage.”

The scrutiny committee was told public health officials were teaming up with a range of bodies, including the NHS and Trading Standards, to tackle the issue in a coordinated way.

Scrapping YorBus will leave thousands without a bus service, councillor warns

Scrapping an on-demand bus service will leave thousands of passengers a month without a service, a councillor has warned.

North Yorkshire Council is examining cost-effective ways of boosting transport services after the authority admitted its flagship Yorbus demand-responsive transport pilot had failed.

It has emerged the Yorbus service for the Bedale, Ripon and Masham area cost more than £15 per passenger to run.

Ahead of launching the two-year pilot, which ends later this month, the council had been warned by public transport providers, including Moorbus, that demand-responsive transport would prove far too costly.

However, councillors disagree over whether there is any appetite for public transport in rural areas and if more frequent services would entice people to leave their cars.

The authority’s opposition leader, Cllr Bryn Griffiths said the ending of the trial later this month would mean “about 1,000 passengers a month without a bus service”.

A meeting of the council’s Richmond constituency committee heard him call for answers as to why the council had failed to win bids for huge amounts of government funding for public transport schemes such as Yorbus.

During a debate over Yorbus, Cllr John Weighell, who led North Yorkshire County Council for nearly 14 years, said Yorbus had not met the needs of residents with mobility issues in rural areas as the stops were too far apart.

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He said even before the Yorbus pilot was launched it had never appeared viable as the authority had previously worked on the principle of supporting services that needed a subsidy of £6 or less per passenger journey.

Cllr Weighell questioned whether demand-responsive transport services would work better if they were limited to short journeys, close to larger market towns.

He said the authority should instead invest more money into developing and supporting voluntary-run community transport.

Cllr Griffiths replied: 

“The problem is they rely on volunteers and we are struggling for volunteers at the moment. Stokesley has two community care buses and they are crying out for volunteers.”

Northallerton councillor Caroline Dickinson, a member of two North Yorkshire bus user groups, said there was “a big concern about the buses and getting people to appointments”.

She said: 

“There’s all the talk about getting people out of their cars onto buses, but in the Dales we don’t have buses.”

The authority’s leadership said they had believed it could have been the “silver bullet” for North Yorkshire’s sparse public transport provision, particularly in rural areas.

Responding to criticism over the authority paying more than £200,000 to continue the pilot for a second year, the council’s leader Cllr Carl Les said it had been necessary to thoroughly test ways to attract more customers, such as bookings arrangements.

He said: 

“It is right to stop now we have proved the costs are prohibitive.”

The authority is now considering increasing its work with volunteer-run community transport providers to reduce the cost of vehicles.

Cllr Les said the Little White Bus service, which has provided scheduled travel in Wensleydale and Swaledale since 2011, could be a better model to help improve transport access in rural areas.

Despite being in a remote area, the service run by paid and volunteer minibus drivers carries in excess of 60,000 passengers a year across 500,000 miles and provides school transport.

He said the authority was already promoting a car share scheme in Harrogate and would consider supporting such schemes for villages where people could search for any journeys they wanted to share, either as a driver or a passenger.

Councillors call for building moratorium in Bishop Monkton over flood fears

Councillors have called for a moratorium on building houses in Bishop Monkton until Yorkshire Water reveals if and when it intends to modernise its waste water system.

North Yorkshire councillors expressed disbelief that as a statutory consultee to a proposed housing estate in the village, near Ripon, the water firm had given the green light, despite its engineers having condemned the village’s sewage system as inadequate for current needs.

Members of the Skipon and Ripon planning committee heard even when rain was “moderate” human waste could be seen on the village’s streets due to a lack of sewage capacity and the water firm had given an undertaking to state when, in its forthcoming 25-year plan for the area, the issue would be rectified.

Cllr Nick Brown, a Conservative who represents Wathvale and Bishop Monkton, told the meeting how he and six of his parishes, including Bishop Monkton, had pressed Yorkshire Water over when it would act to end floods of sewage on the streets.

Cllr Nick Brown

He said during moderate rainfall Bishop Monkton’s combined sewer became overwhelmed and was discharged into the beck at the bottom of the village.

The meeting heard councillors question when Yorkshire Water last objected to a development and that it had a commercial interest in seeing its customer base increase, while having no duty to make corresponding improvements in sewage systems.

Officers warned councillors if they refused the proposal to build up to 23 homes off Knaresborough Road due to the village’s ongoing sewage issues it would be harder to defend an appeal against the decision because Yorkshire Water had not objected to it.

Skipton councillor Robert Heseltine said: 

“Until they put their house in order there shouldn’t be any more building.”

Ripon councillor Andrew Williams added: 

“Which business is voluntarily going to turn down 23 extra customers, knowing there is no regulatory control on Yorkshire Water? There is no obligation on Yorkshire Water to improve what is already a profoundly dissatisfactory situation.”

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The meeting also heard there were concerns raised over the removal of a hedge, which some villagers claim dates back to 1816, the impact of the development on a grade II listed church and conservation area and in particular about road safety.

Councillors unanimously voted to defer a decision over the development to get details from Yorkshire Water over when it planned to upgrade the village’s sewage system, as well as to talk with highways officers and the developer over safety and environmental concerns.

After the meeting, North Yorkshire Council leader, Cllr Carl Les, said he hoped Yorkshire Water would answer councillors’ questions over its plans, adding: 

“Clearly there are concerns about capacity in the system as well as over discharges into rivers.”

In response to the concerns, a Yorkshire Water spokesperson said the application was on land allocated by the council for development, and it was “not a statutory consultee on applications of this nature and unable to refuse connection to our network”.

The statement added:

 “Under the application, the developer will be separating surface water and foul waste, limiting the amount of additional wastewater entering the network.

“We are aware of some issues with the network in the area, but many of these are linked to blockages and infiltration of surface water into the network during heavy rainfall. We have investigated the sewers in the area and are looking at options to add increased storage to alleviate issues during heavy rainfall.”

Call for North Yorkshire police commissioner to resign rejected

A move to press North Yorkshire’s police commissioner to resign, amid claims she has failed in her duty to hold the force’s leadership to account, appears to have been swept aside.

The opposition leader on North Yorkshire Council, Cllr Bryn Griffiths, told a meeting of the authority’s corporate and partnerships scrutiny committee he had issued the notice of motion after hearing Conservative commissioner Zoe Metcalfe’s response to a highly critical inspection of the force.

The Liberal Democrat leader said his Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services re-inspection of how the force keeps children safe took place about a year after Mrs Metcalfe was elected as commissioner and that she had ample time to recognise and start tackling some of the issues.

After the report found 14 of the force’s child protection cases were inadequate and eight required improvement, Mrs Metcalfe said the force had “let the public and the most vulnerable in our society down”.

In a 1,650-word letter to the committee, Mrs Metcalfe said her “activity is aimed at robustly scrutinising and driving assurance on behalf of the public, to see to it that North Yorkshire Police continues its journey to being exemplary”.

She added she would submit a report to highlight her actions to North Yorkshire and York’s police, fire and crime panel, for its consideration on June 21.

However, Cllr Griffiths said the motion was not political, but rather “a failing by the admiral of the fleet, for not keeping control of the captain running the ship”.

He said while the commissioner had spoken of her “surprise” about the report’s findings, it appeared Mrs Metcalfe did not know “what was going on in her own patch”.

Cllr Griffiths said: 

“She was monitoring, she wasn’t managing, she was not in charge of direction for her captain, the chief constable. If oversight had been under control she would have known what was going on and she would have been asking the right questions to the right people.

“This police, fire and crime commissioner has not been doing their job.”

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Other councillors questioned the commissioner’s performance and whether she had held the force’s senior officers to account sufficiently.

Independent councillor for Hunmanby and Sherburn, Michelle Donohue Moncrieff, said the motion represented “a very tempting but simplistic answer”, but it was the police’s leadership, rather than solely the commissioner, who needed to be held to account.

She added: 

“Bearing in mind even if the commissioner did resign, we are running down the clock towards a mayoral combined authority, what net benefit would there be in having a by-election?

“I sometimes feel that she is representing the force to us, rather than us to the force. Some of the things in that report are not acceptable at any level. They need resolving now.”

Conservative colleagues of Mrs Metcalfe highlighted the commissioner was “not the manager of North Yorkshire Police”, but rather was “the public voice” who had “elected oversight” of the force.

Former police officer Cllr Malcolm Taylor called for the committee to take no further action, saying the right body to deal with the matter was the police, fire and crime panel, and instead the commissioner  be invited to address the serious issues highlighted in the report with the committee.

Describing the motion as “wrong-headed” and misguided, another former police officer, Cllr Tim Grogan, said the proposal had wasted the time of the committee.

Ahead of a vote to call the force’s chief constable, Lisa Winward, to answer councillors’ questions, Cllr Grogan said the commissioner had turned around the persistent issue of long waiting times for the non-emergency police phone line and if she dealt with the child protection issues as robustly he had every confidence in her.