Harrogate Town’s stadium upgrade approved

Harrogate Borough Council has approved plans by Harrogate Town FC to upgrade their Envirovent Stadium on Wetherby Road.

It will see almost 1,000 seats installed to bring the ground up to English Football League (EFL) standards.

To the south of the ground, the Myrings terrace will see 264 seats installed and the 1919 bar will be demolished and replaced with a new standing terrace.

A total of 603 seats were installed in the Black Sheep Brewery stand a few weeks ago.

The changes will not increase the overall capacity of 5,071 but will see the number of fans that can be seated rise from 1,193 to 2,060.

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This is to ensure the club meets an EFL requirement that grounds have a minimum capacity of 5,000 and 2,000 seats.

The 1919 bar has not been used on matchdays since before the covid pandemic. It has also been used for private functions.

The club recently opened a new bar next to the Black Sheep stand.

The ground on Wetherby Road has been used by the club for over 100 years and has seen significant investment over the last few years as the club looks to keep up with rapid growth on the pitch.

Simon Weaver’s side now play in the EFL after playing most of its existence in the lower leagues.

They currently sit in 21st in League Two and play Gillingham at home tomorrow (Saturday).

A Harrogate Town spokesperson said:

“As part of our wider stadium development plans, work will soon begin on a new South Stand at the Envirovent Stadium with the aim of being completed in time for next season 2023/24.

“The development will enable the club to reach the required EFL regulation of a minimum of 2,000 seats and will also help us provide for the increasing demand for seats which we cannot accommodate currently.

“We are seeing more young families and first-generation Town supporters, as well as first time fans visiting than ever before so we are delighted to be in a position to provide more seats and facilities to meet the growing demand. In turn, it will help deliver an enhanced match day experience for our loyal supporters and visiting away clubs too.”

Harrogate councillors approve transfer of council-owned companies

Councillors have approved the transfer of Harrogate Borough Council’s wholly-owned companies to the new North Yorkshire Council next month.

HBC’s Conservative-run cabinet met last night at the Civic Centre to discuss a report written by the council’s head of legal and governance, Jennifer Norton.

The report recommends that leisure company Brimhams Active and housing company Bracewell Homes are passed over to the new council on April 1.

Harrogate Borough Council will be abolished on March 31 after being in existence since 1974.

The next day, a new unitary council for the whole of North Yorkshire will be created to deliver all the services currently delivered by Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council.

Wholly-owned companies

Brimhams Active launched in August 2020 when it took over control of leisure centres and swimming pools in Harrogate, Starbeck, Ripon, Knaresborough and Pateley Bridge.

It has overseen major projects such as the redevelopment of the Harrogate Hydro swimming pool and the construction of new facilities in Ripon and Knaresborough.

The new council will add Selby’s leisure services to the Brimhams Active portfolio from September 2024.

This will be whilst it undertakes a £120,000 review of leisure services with the aim of creating a countywide model for delivering leisure and sport by 2027.

Bracewell Homes was set up in 2019 with the aim of turning the council a profit and delivering affordable homes.

It is expecting to deliver 43 homes by the end of 2023/24, which will exceed its target of 40 homes by 2024.

North Yorkshire County Council already has a housing company called Brierley Homes and what will happen to Bracewell inside the new authority is unclear.

‘They’ve done very well for Harrogate’

At last night’s meeting, Conservative council leader Richard Cooper said the two companies have done “very well” for the soon-to-be abolished authority. He said:

“This to me seems very much like a tidying-up exercise, things that we need to do, belt and braces, in order to make sure that the transfer of borough council-owned companies transfers smoothly to the new North Yorkshire Council.

“I hope they will look after them because they’ve done very well for Harrogate Borough Council thanks to the expertise of the officers who have been guiding them.”

Cabinet members Sam Gibbs and Stan Lumley did not take part in the discussion or vote as they sit on the Brimhams Active board.

Social workers recruited from Zimbabwe and South Africa begin work in Harrogate

Social workers recruited from Zimbabwe and South Africa to help plug the social care staffing crisis in North Yorkshire have begun working in Harrogate.

Adult social care has been experiencing well documented recruitment problems in recent years, which has left some providers struggling to hire qualified social workers.

It has previously been reported that on any given day there are at least 1,000 care jobs available across the county.

To address this, a North Yorkshire County Council report said the authority ran several large recruitment campaigns in the UK for more than 30 social worker vacancies but had “very limited” success.

It found recruits were also often newly qualified social workers and not yet ready to manage more complex work.

The report said that with full-time roles unfilled, expensive agency workers have also been used.

Since August, the council has overseen an international recruitment drive with the aim of hiring 30 social workers and five occupational therapists.

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The first cohort of social workers arrived in Harrogate towards the end of last year and the second cohort arrived in January and February of this year.

The new arrivals have been given three weeks of training and have also been allocated a “community buddy” to help them settle into their new country.

North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for health and adult services, Cllr Michael Harrison, who is also the Conservative councillor for Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate, said:

“We have recruited 29 qualified social workers from South Africa and Zimbabwe using a network of specialist agencies and working alongside other councils.

“They will work across the county in what is a great opportunity to help this group of professional social workers further their career in North Yorkshire whilst filling vacancies in specialist areas where there is a national workforce shortage.

“We will monitor the success of this recruitment campaign closely, whilst continuing to advertise our current vacancies regionally and nationally.”

Councillor calls for housebuilding in Harrogate to be paused

A councillor has called for a pause in housebuilding in Harrogate while work on a new local plan for the whole of North Yorkshire is drawn up.

In December, members of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive approved the creation of a new local plan, which must be finalised within five years of North Yorkshire Council being formed on April 1.

It will identify land that can be developed and will replace the seven local plans that are currently used by the soon-to-be-abolished district and borough councils.

This includes Harrogate Borough Council’s Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which was adopted in 2020 and says over 13,000 homes can be built between 2014-2035. The council has said the document will guide planning decisions until the new local plan is created.

Harrogate’s local plan has led to large new housing developments being built in almost every corner of the district. Last month, approval was given to 162 more homes on Kingsley Drive in Harrogate and 1,300 homes at Clotherholme in Ripon.

But councillors have heard repeated concerns about whether the district’s roads, schools and GP practices can cope with the increase in housing.

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The thorny issue came up at a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council on Friday.

Statistics released in the government’s last Housing Delivery Test revealed 1,641 homes — 266% above target — were built in the district between 2018 and 2021.

This led Liberal Democrat councillor for the High Harrogate and Kingsley division, Chris Aldred, to ask North Yorkshire County Council’s Conservative executive member for planning for growth, Simon Myers, if the new council would consider pausing new applications in areas where these government targets are being met.

He said:

“There are areas within the county where we’re well ahead of scheduled housing delivery targets. In Harrogate we are 200% over-target according to the government’s own statistics.

“While we’re developing a new local plan for the county, could you consider in areas where we are well ahead of delivery, we actually pause the application process so we don’t get any houses in areas where we might not have done when we’ve got the new local plan.”

The new council will create six new planning committees to oversee decisions across parliamentary constituency areas, such as Harrogate and Knaresborough and Skipton and Ripon.

They will be set up with councillors from across the political spectrum voting on whether significant planning applications go ahead.

‘Misleading’ figure

After the meeting, Cllr Myers told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the 200% figure was misleading. He said:

“Essentially, Harrogate has only just caught up with its own housing targets. It isn’t 200% over. The development is all in accordance with the local plan and to halt development would put Harrogate at risk of the plan being seen as out of date and open the possibility of speculative development. And of course with development we hope to deliver affordable housing which is sorely needed in every part of the county.

“The figure of 200% ‘over delivery’ was published in the government’s housing delivery test calculation pre-adoption of the Harrogate local plan. This was based on delivery against the standard methodology figure that does reflect an accurate picture of need. If you look at delivery against the actual plan-target, the figure is lower.

“In summary, the 200% figure is misleading and the higher-than-plan-target delivery rates should not be cause for alarm as they reflect positive progress on addressing a significant shortfall and reflect a planned trajectory.”

Long-awaited £1.2m refurbishment of Ripon’s police and fire station confirmed

North Yorkshire Police has confirmed that a refurbishment of Ripon’s shared police and fire station is underway.

The £1.2m project has been in the pipeline for several years after the force sold Ripon’s police station in 2014.

Officers have used facilities at the fire station since 2018 but the site on Stonebridgegate has been deemed not fit-for-purpose by North Yorkshire Police.

In summer 2021, former Conservative Police, Crime and Fire Commissioner Philip Allott unveiled plans for a major refurbishment of the building.

A report was prepared for councillors yesterday that said the works had now been approved and represented “the best value for money” for Ripon residents.

The works will include repurposing the ground floor for the police to interact with the public, changing the first floor to create better meeting spaces for the fire service and improving the windows and lighting of the building.

Additional facilities costing £90,000 will also be created in Ripon’s Town Hall on Market Place to improve the police’s presence in the city centre.

Councillors in Harrogate met last night and heard from North Yorkshire Police Chief Inspector Richard Ogden about the project. Construction work is estimated to take around 15 weeks.

Ch Insp Ogden said:

“It’s something that has been long-overdue. I’m really pleased we have a way forward. We’re not only going to have investment for the fire service but we’re going to have a footprint for our neighbourhood team in the city centre. It’s really exciting for Ripon.”

The police said there will be slight disruption during construction but work will be phased to reduce its impact.

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Zoe Metcalfe

In a press statement released after the meeting, Conservative Police, Crime and Fire Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe said:

“The facilities in Ripon are out of date and not suitable for our modern and inclusive work force.

“This redevelopment is long overdue. As commissioner, I have listened to the community and staff, and want to create a safe environment for the fire and police services to work from and is fit for the future.

“I am also delighted that part of this investment enables us to put our local policing team right into the heart of the city in the Town Hall, being accessible and visible, helping people to be safe and feel safe and contributing towards economic growth.”

Anti-social behaviour in Ripon

Last week, police in Ripon urged residents to report instances of anti-social behaviour following reports in the Aismunderby Road and Ambrose Road areas and the area around the Jack Laugher Leisure Centre and nearby skate park.

Ch Insp Ogden told councillors last night that spikes in anti-social behaviour “comes and goes” in Ripon but that officers have worked to target offenders in the city. He said:

“There was considerable anti-social behaviour problems in Ripon 18 months ago. The neighbourhood team did a lot of proactive work and we dealt with a number of individuals and things seem to be in a good position.”

Double devolution could be ‘fundamental gamechanger’ for Knaresborough, says councillor

A Knaresborough councillor has said double devolution could be a “fundamental gamechanger” for the town.

It follows a meeting of Knaresborough Town Council this week where town councillors backed submitting an expression of interest to North Yorkshire County Council to become part of a pilot scheme that could eventually see the town council run Knaresborough’s Wednesday market.

Knaresborough has held a weekly market since 1310, which it claims makes it the longest continually-run market in the country.

It’s currently run by Harrogate Borough Council but that will all change from April 1 when control will be handed to the new North Yorkshire Council unitary authority.

If the expression of interest is successful, the town council would work with officers at North Yorkshire Council to develop a business case for potentially running the market.

This process would take around 12 months before a final decision is made by on whether Knaresborough is one of six pilot double devolution projects.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr David Goode said developing a business case would be an important experience to understand the processes, procedures and skills required to make double devolution bids.

He pointed to the example of Falmouth Town Council in Cornwall, which was not running any services 20 years ago but now employs 42 people and is a multi-million-pound operation.

He said:

“That’s the sort of massive change we’re looking at but it won’t happen overnight.”

Cllr Goode was keen to stress that if the town council were to ultimately run the market it would not necessarily mean an increase in its council tax precept.

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The North Yorkshire Council budget for the market would be transferred to the town council as part of a legal agreement. This would commit the council to maintaining at least the same level and standard of service currently delivered on a permanent basis.

If the town council wanted to make enhancements to the market, it may have to meet the associated costs, but Cllr Goode said it would ask Knaresborough residents for their opinion before any decision was made.

He believes that good consultation will crucial if double devolution is to be a success.

Cllr Goode said:

“I firmly believe that if there is an enhancement to the market, that needs to be a ground-up decision from the community and not at the whim of councillors.”

Council leader refuses to rule out staff redundancies with North Yorkshire Council

North Yorkshire County Council leader Carl Les has refused to rule out future staff redundancies after the new council is created in April.

In just over a month, the county’s seven district councils and North Yorkshire County Council will be replaced by a new unitary authority called North Yorkshire Council to run services across the county, which will also be led by the Conservative Cllr Les.

A key argument for local government reorganisation was that it would save the taxpayer money but some district councils have faced criticism from the Taxpayers’ Alliance and union officials for offering outgoing chief executives six-figure redundancy packages.

Hambleton District Council and Selby District Council agreed packages worth £225,000 and £210,000 for its outgoing chief executives, Justin Ives and Janet Waggott, respectively.

At a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council on Wednesday in Northallerton, Cllr Andy Brown, Green Party member for the Aire Valley division, asked Cllr Les if he could offer assurances that there would not be similar redundancy payments as a result of the move to the new authority.

In response, Cllr Les said:

“I can’t give an assurance that there won’t be further redundancies for posts with the new council because the council will always be looking for efficiencies.”

He added:

“I can assure that those redundancy processes will be fair both to employee and taxpayer.”

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The vast majority of staff working for the district councils and North Yorkshire County Council will transfer over to the North Yorkshire Council under TUPE terms on April 1.

David Houlgate, Harrogate branch secretary at local government union Unison, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service after today’s meeting that Unison does not expect there to be compulsory redundancies with the new council but there may be voluntary ones.

He added:

“We’d look at voluntary redundancies which may in some instances be mutually beneficial for our members and taxpayers but in reality the staffing issue in local government is around recruitment not over-staffing.”

Plans approved for 1,300 homes at Ripon Barracks

Councillors have approved plans to build 1,300 homes at Ripon’s army barracks, subject to conditions.

Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee met this afternoon to consider an application from government housing agency Homes England, which has been developing the plans for several years alongside the Ministry of Defence.

Councillors were split over the scheme’s impact on roads in the city as well as whether historical military buildings on the site, which were used during both world wars, would be protected.

Votes were tied at six for and six against supporting the officer’s recommendation to defer the plans to officers to approve, subject to conditions.

This meant the committee’s chair, the Conservative councillor for Harrogate St Georges, Rebecca Burnett, cast the deciding vote to see the plans passed.

Clotherholme

The military is set to vacate the site in 2026 but phased work will now begin.

The housing scheme is called Clotherholme and also includes a new primary school, sports pitches, retail, food and drink units, and a 60-bed care home.

The site is home to the Royal Engineers and consists of Deverell Barracks to the east, Claro Barracks to the west and Laver Banks to the south.

Homes England says 3,000 people will live there to increase the population of Ripon by a fifth, although this does not take into account the loss of military personnel who have lived in the community for decades.

It’s expected that all the homes would be built by 2035 and 30% will be classed as affordable.

No new road

Campaigners have long raised fears about the impact on local roads and there have been calls to include a relief road via Galphay Road, but this was rejected.

Access to the site would be from Clotherholme Road and Kirkby Road.

Homes England undertook traffic studies that predicted queues and delays at existing junctions if the homes were built, so changes to the Low Skellgate, Coltsgate Hill and Clock Tower junctions have been proposed as part of 28 alterations to the existing road network.

A new roundabout would also be created at the junction of Kirkby Road and Chatham Road.

‘Hell to drive through’

Liberal Democrat county councillor Barbara Brodigan spoke on behalf of Ripon Spa Residents’ Action Group against the plans.

Cllr Brodigan said she was not against the site being developed but objected to the number of homes proposed. She said a relief road should be built to accommodate any increase in traffic. She said:

“The city was founded 600 years ago and the layout of its streets and centre has hardly changed. It’s pretty to look at, but hell to drive through.

“The layout of the city’s streets was not designed for cars but for horses and carts and people on foot.”

A computer generated image of how Chatham Road and Napier Street in Ripon would look under the plans.

A computer generated image of how Chatham Road and Napier Street in Ripon would look under the plans

Ripon Independent councillor for Ure Bank, Sid Hawke, said there was a question mark over the traffic surveys undertaken by the developer. He said:

“Have you been up Clotherholme Road at peak times?  It’s absolute mayhem, you’re talking about putting 1,300 houses up there. Thats 2,000 cars on that road.”

David Rowlinson, speaking on behalf of the applicant, said highways and transport had been a “key issue” that Homes England and the MoD had worked through whilst developing the scheme. He said:

“We’re not new to this site, we’ve been working on it for five years. We’ve looked at this very thoroughly and worked with North Yorkshire County Council’s highways department to get their on-the-ground views.

“We feel we’ve robustly assessed the impacts and come up with the best solution possible for Ripon.

“North Yorkshire County Council has confirmed there is no defensible reason to refuse the application on highways and transport grounds.”

Military history

The barracks were originally built as a convalescent camp for troops during the First World War.

Thousands were housed there, including the wartime poet Wilfred Owen, who wrote some of his famous works there.

Jane Furse, on behalf of the Ripon Military Heritage Trust, asked councillors to defer the plans until a strategy had been produced that protected from demolition two training bridges and a hut, which has been called one of the best-surviving Second World War-era prefab structures.

However, the bridges and the hut are not protected under planning laws.

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Ms Furse gave a history of the military’s involvement at the site spanning two world wars and the Cold War.

She added:

“We request robust, enforceable conditions are imposed to protect our internationally significant heritage.”

Historic England raised “strong concerns” over the demolition of the hut but it has been decided that it can’t be retained because of asbestos, which HBC officer Andy Hough called “extremely regrettable”.

Homes England said it is committed to working with Ripon Military Heritage Group on studies to resolve what happens to the buildings.

Mr Rowlinson said:

“We give a commitment that until issues are resolved and a strategy is developed, structures will not be destroyed.

“We’re happy to do that, we need to work through the process with the group.”

‘Evidence-based decision’

The Conservative councillor for Ripon Spa and cabinet member for housing, Mike Chambers, who is also a former serviceman, said he supported “the majority” of the scheme but there are “clear issues” with the traffic assessment, so he would not be supporting the proposal.

Cllr Chambers claimed the changes to the Low Skellgate junction, banning right turns, “will only seek to exacerbate the situation”.

Conservative council leader Richard Cooper, who was on the planning committee today as a substitute, said rejecting the plans on transport grounds would risk a costly appeal.

In 2022, HBC had to pay £25,000 in costs after the authority was taken to appeal over its rejection of the Leon drive thru on Wetherby Road. Cllr Cooper said:

“You go and sit before an appeal and say to them ‘I drove down that road once and it was busy’, they’ll laugh at you.

“They did it with the Leon application, they laughed at us because there was no evidence to back up a refusal on traffic grounds and we lost the cost of the appeal because of that.”

Cllr Cooper added:

“If we aren’t a planning committee that bases our deliberations upon evidence, then we arent fit to be a planning committee at all. All our decisions should be evidence-based.”

The applicant has agreed to pay £4,694,875 to North Yorkshire County Council to go towards local primary and secondary schools.

It will also pay £907,267 to the NHS to support healthcare facilities.

North Yorkshire’s Levelling Up failure blamed on ‘too many bids for too small a pot’

North Yorkshire County Council‘s leader has blamed the county’s failure in securing Levelling Up funding on “too many bids” across the country for “too small a pot”.

Last month the government revealed the winners of the second Levelling Up Fund round that saw £2.1bn up for grabs.

Several district councils in the county made bids for funding, including £20m to redevelop Harrogate Convention Centre. North Yorkshire County Council also submitted a £39.3m bid to upgrade Thirsk, Seamer and Scarborough stations.

In total, bids worth £118.4m were made for projects in the county but only Richmondshire District Council received funding, which will see £19m spent regenerating Catterick town centre in prime minister Rishi Sunak’s constituency.

At a full meeting of the county council in Northallerton this week, Cllr Bryn Griffiths, Liberal Democrat member for Stokesley division, asked council leader Carl Les why most of the bids in North Yorkshire had failed.

He said:

“We don’t seem to be very good at obtaining Levelling Up money, do we? Do we know why? What are the reasons? Are our processes wrong or is central government not listening to us?”

Cllr Lindsay Burr, independent member for the Malton division, said the rejections were both “concerning and disappointing” for the county. She added:

“Levelling Up was announced with great fanfare and the majority of residents felt it was a given that Yorkshire would be levelled up. Could our leader press central government to ensure Yorkshire can get its fair share?”

‘Too small a pot’

Cllr Les said NYCC had received feedback from government on why bids failed but added that he believes not enough money was available for all the bids to be successful. He said:

“We do ask civil servants for feedback and we get that. The issue with the fund was there was too many bids for too small a pot.

“I use my powers to urge government to give us more in North Yorkshire, I do that all the time but other leaders around the country do that as well. We’ll always bang the drum for North Yorkshire and try to get our fair share.”

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During the first two rounds of the Levelling Up Fund, 834 bids were submitted but only 216 were successful.

The government scored each bid out of 100 with criteria including deliverability and the characteristics of each place.

It will be opening a third round of funding with a further £1bn available to councils.

Earlier this month, the Local Democracy Reporting Service revealed that Harrogate Borough Council spent £45,000 on consultants to help prepare its failed Levelling Up bid.

Liberal Democrat member for the Kingsley division, Cllr Chris Aldred, asked Cllr Les how much was spent in total in North Yorkshire for consultants to help with bids.

Cllr Les promised to answer his question before the district councils are abolished in just over a month.

Harrogate council to make offers on three empty homes

Harrogate Borough Council is to offer to buy three long-term empty homes in Harrogate.

A report before the council’s cabinet member for housing and safer communities, Cllr Mike Chambers, proposes the local authority makes an offer on the properties in order to bring them back into use.

The homes are located in Rothbury Close, Osborne Road and Eleanor Road in Harrogate.

The report says the council intends to sell the properties on the open market, with any profits being spent on future empty home purchases.

The council can issue compulsory purchase orders which allow it to take ownership without the consent of the owner. However, the council’s first step is to make an offer.

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The price the council is likely to offer for the properties is not disclosed, although the report notes offers were made in 2019 for three empty properties at a combined sum of £625,000.

There are currently 749 properties across the district that have been empty for six months or longer.

Of these, 209 have been empty and unfurnished for over two years and consequently classified as long-term empty homes. A total of 28 have been empty for over 10 years.

The council prioritised the problem in its 2019 empty homes strategy although it said much of the responsibility was on homeowners themselves.

It has a budget of £2.5 million to spend on empty homes, which comes from its reserves.

There are numerous reasons properties can lie empty. Sometimes, landlords cannot afford to renovate their property to sell or rent. Properties may also have been inherited and the new owners don’t know what to do with them.

Rentals can also fall below safety standards, which means they sit vacant until the problems are fixed.

The report adds: 

“Empty homes represent a wasted housing resource; they also pose other problems for local authorities, owners, neighbours, emergency services and the environment. 

“They are often a blemish on an area and can be subject to vandalism and anti-social behaviour.”