Harrogate district coronavirus rate falls for first time after record highs

The Harrogate district’s coronavirus infection rate has fallen sharply for the first time this summer after last week reaching record levels.

In an encouraging trend that is mirrored across North Yorkshire, the borough’s weekly rate has dropped to 441 cases per 100,000 people after peaking at 533.

The latest rate equates to an average of just over 100 new infections per day. Just 57 cases were recorded today by Public Health England.

Unlike previous waves, high case rates have not translated into large numbers of infected people being admitted to hospital, with just three patients in Harrogate hospital as of last Wednesday.

That figure has remained low thanks to high levels of vaccine take-up – and there has not been a covid-related death reported by the hospital in over three months.

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A total of 122,457 people in the Harrogate district have now received their first vaccine dose and 103,067 people their second.

Meanwhile, the infection rate across North Yorkshire as a whole now stands at 472 per 100,000 people, ahead of the England average of 446.

Crimple Valley red kite wood sculpture vandalised

A Harrogate wood carver has expressed disappointment after vandals ripped off the face of one of his sculptures.

Jonathan Sherwood, who operates under the trading name Sherwood Carving, created the red kite sculpture for Harrogate Sports & Fitness Centre.

The artwork stood proud in the Crimple Valley area of Harrogate for just two months before vandals damaged it last Tuesday.

As the missing piece could not be found, Mr Sherwood is going to try and recarve the head this evening. He told the Stray Ferret:

“I always try to make my carvings quite sturdy but unfortunately if someone really wants to do some damage then they are able to.

“Obviously it is disappointing. I was quite surprised to see it like that. I am fully booked with work so I will have to go in the evening to have a look.

“Hopefully I will be able to recarve it by moving the position of the bird’s head slightly.”

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Local resident Mike Ulman found the damage last week and posted pictures of it on a community Facebook page.

The post prompted numerous comments from people sharing Mr Sherwood’s disappointment and questioning the motivations of whoever was responsible.

Harrogate social distancing planters heading to Starbeck

Six of the social distancing planters that were in Harrogate town centre during covid restrictions look set to be moved to Starbeck High Street.

The planters, which occupied town centre parking spaces to the annoyance of some traders, were removed from James Street and Albert Street last week.

Harrogate Borough Council subsequently put out a call to local business owners interested in loaning the wooden boxes.

Andrew Hart, who owns the post office in Starbeck, said the council had agreed this morning to loan him six planters, providing he can get a pavement licence from North Yorkshire County Council, which he hopes will be a formality.

Mr Hart plans to put the planters outside the former McColl’s supermarket building, which was destroyed by fire three years ago. He said it has been an “eyesore” ever since.

Mr Hart said there would be enough space on the pavement for wheelchairs and prams to pass.

He added:

“The planters will distract the eye [from the McColl’s building], especially for people driving through Starbeck.”

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The flowers have been wilting in the sun at the council’s nursery on Harlow Hill in Harrogate because the council said it did not have the resources to water them properly.

Mr Hart has agreed to pay the council £40 per planter to put fresh flowers in the boxes. Once they arrive in Starbeck, they will be watered and maintained by volunteers.

The council bought the planters after receiving £144,411 from the European Regional Development Fund to boost high streets during the covid pandemic.

However, as a condition of using the EU money, the planters cannot be placed on privately-owned land and must be branded with the ERDF and HMG logos before being returned to the council by March next year.

Police appeal after bike stolen outside Harrogate’s Caffe Nero

North Yorkshire Police has issued a plea for information after a bike was stolen outside Caffe Nero on Beulah Street, Harrogate.

The black Carrera road bike was left propped up outside the coffee shop at about 2.30pm on Thursday when it was taken by a man, described by police as a slim white male aged between 35 and 40.

He was wearing dark shorts, a grey t-shirt and a baseball cap.

The bike has red trim and thin tyres.

A police statement said:

“We are requesting the public’s assistance to help establish the full circumstances surrounding the incident.

“In particular, we are appealing for information about and witnesses to the incident or if anyone has seen the bike in question.

Anyone will information can call North Yorkshire Police on 101, select option two and ask for Jacob Higgins. The officer can also be contacted via jacob.higgins@northyorkshirepolice.uk.

To remain anonymous, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

The crime reference number is 12210165521.

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Richard Osman brings Harrogate crime writing festival to a close

A conversation between Pointless star Richard Osman and author Mark Billingham brought Harrogate’s prestigious crime writing festival to a close last night.

Osman, who wrote the Thursday Murder Club, was one of many leading crime writers to visit Harrogate for the four-day Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.

Mr Osman also helped his team win a crime writing-themed quiz hosted by renowned authors Val McDermid and Mr Billingham.

The festival, which didn’t take place last year due to covid, was held at Harrogate’s Old Swan Hotel and organised by the arts charity Harrogate International Festivals.

Chris Whitaker’s book We Begin at the End was named crime novel of the year on the opening night.

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Live: Harrogate district traffic and travel

Good morning and happy Monday, it’s Leah with you this morning giving you updates every 15 minutes on the road and rail links near you.

The blog, brought to you by the HACS group, will show you where the traffic hotspots and temporary traffic lights are and tell you of any train and bus delays.

9am – Full Update

That is it from me this morning, Suzannah with be back with you tomorrow morning with updates every 15 minutes from 6.30. I hope you all have a lovely Monday.

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

8.45am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

8.30am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

8.15am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

8am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

7.45am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

7.30am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Traffic is building here:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

7.15am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

 

7am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

6.45am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

 

6.30am – Full Update

Roads

The roads are looking clear so far this morning but make sure to keep checking in for today’s traffic hotspots.

Traffic Hotspots:

Temporary traffic lights are in place here:

Trains

Buses

 

Harrogate Cricket Club aims for Addison Cup glory

Harrogate Cricket Club will take on Wetherby Carr Manor in Knaresborough today in the final of one of the oldest cricket competitions in the world.

The Addison Cup was first contested in 1922 and has been held every year since except 1943 and last year.

The 20-over competition is open to the top 16 teams in the Harrogate and District Amateur Evening Cricket League.

League members include Birstwith, Boroughbridge and Staveley, Burnt Yates, Goldsborough, KIllinghall, Knaresborough, Knaresborough Forest and Pateley Bridge.

This evening’s final will see past winners Harrogate, who are top of Division 1, against unbeaten Division 3 leaders Wetherby Carr Manor, who are making their first ever appearance in the final.

The match starts at 6.15pm at Knaresborough Cricket Club on Aspin Lane.

Peter Horsman, the league secretary, said:

“With all league and cup cricket cancelled last season because of lockdown, it would be great to see a good crowd on Monday.”

The Harrogate and District Amateur Evening Cricket League, which has 32 teams in five divisions, was founded in 1921 and in the following year the Addison Cup was presented to the league by the Addison family.

Members of the Addison family will attend and present the trophy this year.

A number of international test cricketers have played in the evening league, including New Zealand great Martin Crowe and West Indian batsman Rohan Kanhai.

Crowe was actually banned from the league for reacting badly to being given out — the glass in the changing room’s window suffered badly.

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Stray Views: Is Harrogate in decline?

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.

Drunken Harrogate? It’s just people enjoying themselves…

I have never before been moved to write re readers letters. However, the superior tone of Tim Emmott’s letter last week really cannot go unanswered.

The tone smacks of so much that is wrong with Harrogate. Namely that those of a certain age and with money think it is quite OK for them to object to normal humans wishing to enjoy themselves. Do they not think other people have money or equal right to enjoy themselves?

The same people call out people for standing within 1.9 metres of people in supermarkets, etc. I could go on. How very dare they think they have a superior right to exist over others.

Mick Marshalsey, Harrogate

But we agree with Tim — Harrogate is going downhill

I absolutely agree with Tim Emmott.

We too have friends that no longer visit when we are in Harrogate. The general view is ‘it’s not what it was’.

Harrogate used to be such a lovely place, where so many people aspired to live. Now we have anti-social behaviour, drunks, litter, vandalism, beggars travelling from out of town, robberies and drug dealers trading around the station.

There’s little or no police presence and no will by the council to tackle these issues. What a sorry state of affairs.

Catherine Tucker-Sykes, Harrogate

Harrogate’s 10-year decline

We have only lived here in Harrogate for 10 years but have been saddened to witness the rapid decline of the town over this time. There are beggars on the streets who enjoy getting together to drink.

Sandra Fielding, Harrogate

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Do you have 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.

 

Green Shoots: Harrogate district plumber swaps ‘dirty diesel’ for vegetable fat

In this month’s Green Shoots we look at a Harrogate district plumber and heating engineer who has upgraded his “dirty diesel” van to run on a new green fuel made with vegetable fat — and reduced the amount of CO2 emissions it produces by up to 90%.

Alan Marcon owns Green and Reliable Heating in Whixley and clocks up hundreds of miles a month in his VW van travelling around Harrogate, York, Knaresborough, Nidderdale, and Masham installing central heating systems.

After becoming increasingly concerned about his own impact on the environment, he decided to “practice what I preach” and two months ago ditched polluting diesel for hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO).

No modifications to the fuel tank are needed.

A litre of HVO works out at £1.75, which is more expensive than diesel, but its impact on the environment is profound as it helps to combat climate change while making the air cleaner.

He said:

“We need to make change. Diesel is dirty. Our kids, their grandchildren need cleaner air. The quicker we can rid of diesel the better.”

“Our children need cleaner air”

Once touted as a clean fuel by the UK government in the 2000s, the reputation of diesel was irretrievably severed after the ‘dieselgate’ scandal in the 2010s when the carmaker Volkswagon was found to be cheating emissions tests.

Studies have come out in recent years that show exposure to diesel can contribute to asthma, heart disease and several types of cancer.

In a landmark case in December 2020, a coroner said air pollution contributed to the death of nine-year-old Londoner Ella Kissi-Debrah due to her exposure to toxic exhaust fumes near her home by a busy road.

The government will ban the sale of new diesel vehicles from 2035.

Alan said he was 11 when he began helping out at the family plumbing business, but during his early years in the trade his awareness of the damage diesel can do to the body was limited.

He said:

“We need to do something now”.

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Future technology

Before making the switch, Mr Marcon was worried the new fuel might damage his van, but he says the engine is quieter and happier, which should reduce the chance of engine failure or costly repairs.

He buys the fuel in barrels from a wholesale supplier.

2020 was a record year for electric car sales, but the majority of those sold were personal cars such as Teslas.

The switch to electric for fleet and trade vehicles has been a slower process, partly due to the high cost for new vehicles and a lack of government subsidies to encourage businesses to convert.

Mr Marcon sees HVO fuel as the ideal stopgap before the electric revolution takes hold:

“We need to do something quicker. Electric is brilliant but we haven’t got the technology yet.”

Skyfall

The world is changing, and Mr Marcron hopes other tradespeople will get on board with the new fuel.

He lives in Whixley in a house called Skyfall — fittingly, James Bond is set to drive an electric Aston Martin in the next installment of the franchise.

He added:

“After the pandemic more people want to be green. HVO is the perfect solution. I look at Yorkshire and I want to see our cities and towns go green.

Do you have an interesting project or passion that improves the environment and could feature in Green Shoots? Contact thomas@thestrayferret.co.uk

Local cycling star goes for gold in Olympic race tomorrow

Olympic cyclist Lizzie Deignan, who has made Harrogate her home, will take to the road tomorrow morning to race for Team GB.

The 33-year-old is known for growing up in Otley but since moving to Harrogate after her wedding in 2016, she has fallen back in love with the town she remembers as a child.

Ms Deignan will represent her country in the road race at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics tomorrow.

The 137km race, snaking from Tokyo’s Musashinonomori Park to the Fuji International Speedway but not climbing Mt Fuji itself, will begin at 5am UK time.

At the London 2012 Olympics she won silver in the road race, claiming the first medal for Team GB that year.

She also competed on the district’s roads during the Tour de Yorkshire in 2017 and the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in 2019.

When did you start cycling?

I didn’t really grow up in a cycling family, though we were certainly active and I took part in every sport at school. Cycling found me when I was 15. British Cycling came to my school with some bikes to try to find potential cyclists as part of a talent ID programme ahead of London 2012. I was happy to skip a maths lesson to give it a try and managed to beat the boys and the coaches must have seen something in me and the rest, as they say, is history.

What are your aspirations for the Tokyo Olympics?

I’m really excited to head to Tokyo, though it will obviously be a very different Olympics to previous games in the current situation. The last Olympics, I was kind of going there as one of the favourites; I was thinking about the Olympics probably every 10 minutes of every day in the lead up. But this time, life is a bit fuller with my daughter and other stuff going on. I can go a day or two without it being on my mind. Then I suddenly catch myself and think, “Ah, I’m approaching this differently”. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I’m just a bit more relaxed.

Lizzie Deignan

Lizzie Deignan posted a photo of her and two Olympic teammates training this week. Photograph: @l-deignan

How long have you been living in Harrogate?

My husband and I made Harrogate our home after we got married a few years ago and we love it. Sadly, we don’t get to spend as much time at home as we would like, as I spend most of my time travelling to race or train overseas and we have a base in Monaco, too.

You’re known as an Otley person, do you have any other connections to Harrogate?

Harrogate is somewhere that we visited as a family so I have happy memories from childhood. As an adult it was a fantastic opportunity to compete on home roads when Harrogate hosted the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in 2019. The support from the crowds was fantastic – despite the weather! It was also very special to win a stage of the Tour of Yorkshire finishing in Harrogate back in 2017.

What is your favourite cycling route around the district?

I’m not sure I have a favourite, but there are plenty of places I like cycling around the area, including to Lofthouse and Leyburn. There is a route out that way that is quite challenging and takes in some of the World Championships route. I love the quiet lanes along the Nidd on the way back from Leyburn and there are lots of nice cafes to choose from in Masham when you are within an hour from home.

How will the course in Tokyo compare with the terrain around Harrogate and Otley?  

Nothing compares to Yorkshire roads! The climbs are very different and the terrain is less rolling than home roads, which are just brutal, but the biggest change will be the conditions as it will be so hot and humid in Tokyo. It has required plenty of heat chamber training to make sure I’m prepared.

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There are a lot of keen cyclists in the area. Do you often get noticed when you pass them on training rides?

When I’m at home I often take the opportunity to ride with friends and family and enjoy seeing people I know on home roads.

Where is your favourite place to visit in and around Harrogate?

I have fond memories of Valley Gardens and nearby I would say Bolton Abbey, where my husband Phil and I had our wedding reception.