A group representing independent businesses in Harrogate has voiced its disappointment over the restarting of parking charges.
William Woods, on behalf of Independent Harrogate, said he had previously told the council to help retailers by delaying the reintroduction of charges.
He said that free parking would make a “huge difference” to businesses in Harrogate. Many of which are reopening for the first time on June 15, the same time charges come back into force.
“We wanted a grace period to help businesses to get back on their feet. We need to do all we can to get visitors back into the town centre. I thought that free parking would send a strong message.”
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Since the start of the lockdown enforcement officers have only targeted dangerous and obtrusive parking but that will change on June 15.
The measures will come into force for both on-street and off-street parking. North Yorkshire County Council is urging people to exercise social distancing when parking and paying to park.
Harrogate BID response to parking charges
Harrogate BID has been more welcoming to the reintroduction of parking charges but said that the change needed to be communicated well.
Covid Co-Operation Harrogate raises £11,155 for local charitiesSara Ferguson, acting chair, said: “I can see why the County Council is doing this, as it will ensure there is turnover in spaces when shops reopen, but it needs to be communicated loud and clear, so no one is caught unaware. We need to ensure that at the same time traffic wardens are back patrolling the streets, the town’s car parks are re-opened and properly signposted.”
Covid-Co-Operation Harrogate has raised £11,155 for local charities as a result of its crowdfunding appeal.
Covid Co-Operation Harrogate was set up as a means of connecting local people who need help, with those able to help. The group rapidly expanded to more than 10,000 members. As a result of the incredible response, the groups admin team set up a fundraising page for local charities who need help during this difficult time.
The charities, who have all received an equal share of the donations, include: Supporting Older People, Harrogate Foodbank, IDAS, SparkSupport, Hear to Help and Canaan Warehouse.
Susie Little, founder of the group and the crowdfund appeal, told The Stray Ferret:
“I chose 6 small charities who I felt were helping sections of society who are particularly vulnerable at this particular time.”
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The Great Stand Up To Covid-19 Bake Off is just one of the many activities run by the group. This event encourages members to bake their best cake and send a photo of their creation to the group.
Cake baked by Mia Wright, Age 14.
In order to take park, each participant donated a £2 entry fee to the crowdfund page and the bake off was judged by Bruce Reid and Harrogate’s White Watch. 10 finalists, 7 adults and 3 under 16 competitors, have been awarded a place in next weekends show stopper.
Cake baked by Dawn Peretti-Speirs.
The Bake-Off competition was one of many activities carried out by members of the group in order to raise money. Other fundraising events included a charity bike ride of 150 miles and auctions of jewellery and garden furniture donated by members of the group.
Harrogate Autumn Flower Show cancelledThe North of England Horticultural Society has cancelled this years Harrogate Autumn Flower Show, set to take place from 18-20 September at Newby Hall.
The decision has been taken due to the ongoing uncertainty as to when the government will allow large public gatherings. It comes after the Harrogate Spring Flower Show at the Yorkshire Show Ground was also cancelled – both events attract up to 100,000 visitors between them.
Nick Smith, the show’s director said:
“Naturally we are very disappointed that 2020 will go down as the year there were no Harrogate Flower Shows to open and close the gardening season, but the safety of our visitors, exhibitors and the wider public must come first.
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This is the first time the autumn flower show has not taken place since during the Second World War.
The organisers have informed those who had tickets for the show that they will receive a full refund by the end of July. For more information visit the Harrogate Flower Show website – https://www.flowershow.org.uk/
Parking fines to come back into force in Harrogate districtThe county council is reintroducing parking fines in the Harrogate district from next Monday as more shops open to customers.
Since the start of the lockdown enforcement officers have only targeted dangerous and obtrusive parking but that will change on June 15.
The measures will come into force for both on-street and off-street parking and will not be welcome by many Harrogate retailers who are desperate to get shoppers back into the town centre.
However, NHS staff, health or social care workers, and NHS volunteer responders will still be eligible for free parking if they leave evidence in their windows like an NHS permit.
Read More:
- Independent Harrogate calls for cheaper parking to help stimulate town centre economy
- Harrogate BID calls for urgent review of car park signage
North Yorkshire County Council is urging people to exercise social distancing when parking and paying to park and encouraging contactless payment through the AppyParking app.
They have asked anyone needing to pay by cash to use hand sanitiser before and after using the parking machine.
In the run-up to 15 June, officers will issue warning notices to motorists with expired permits and those contravening the regulations.
North Yorkshire County Councillor Don Mackenzie, Executive Member for Access, said:
Exclusive: Harrogate Hospital Trust projects £11m funding gap“At any time, parking enforcement is an essential tool in helping to manage traffic flow to provide ease of access for all road users. As our towns open up it is important to manage traffic and to support the emergency active travel measures implemented to enable pedestrians and cyclists to maintain social distancing.”
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has projected an £11 million hole in its funding this year.
A report from the Board of Directors seen by The Stray Ferret revealed how the Trust is trying to balance its books.
The Trust looked over its expenditure, top-up payments, and coronavirus funding before coming to the conclusion that it had a shortfall.
It will approach NHS centrally to ask for more money long term and, in the meantime, the Trust will request additional funds each month.
Read more on this story
- When health bosses welcomed the government’s decision to write off its £4.8 million debt
- How the Trust spent nearly half a million pounds on sick pay in the first month of lockdown
Financial directors at the Trust are looking at ways it can reduce its capital spending and the report says that they will have to reassess priorities over the next few weeks.
The report does not indicate what could be dropped but it does say that they have a June deadline for any proposals.
What has the Trust blamed for the expected shortfall?
The Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has not blamed coronavirus for the £11 million gap in its funding.
Here are some of the bigger sums from the report:
- £3 million – The Trust claims back money from the CCG for work it has done on its behalf. However, North Yorkshire CCG itself has projected a deficit of £18 million for this financial year.
- £2.9 million – The Trust is in ongoing discussion with the NHS around its depreciating assets. It could be beds, computers or buildings.
- £1 million – The Trust is no longer receiving income from another provider for the Briary Wing.
- £2 million – Staff who work for local authority and the Trust are in line for a pay increase. It is also partly down to savings needed for the contracts.
A controversial council decision to bring in Lancashire based contractors to restore West Park Stray was made under “urgent circumstances” – seven months after the UCI World Cycling Championships.
Details seen by The Stray Ferret show the six-month contract handed to Glendale Services is worth an estimated £40,926.29 and was a direct appointment by the council in April, meaning it was not put out to competitive tender.
At the time, the decision to outsource to Glendale was met with fierce criticism from local contractors who said they were “absolutely disgusted” that they weren’t invited to tender for the work.
Harrogate Borough Council brought in the Chorley-based company to restore the Stray which was left with a £130,000 repair bill following the cycling championships.
Glendale have since started reseeding work, which council bosses say will be complete by September.
Read more:
- UCI Championship organisers to pay towards Stray cost
- Why bring in Lancashire contractors to restore the Stray?
Liberal Democrat county councillor, Geoff Webber, who asked the borough council through a Freedom of Information request about the contract, said he was disappointed that there was no competition for the work.
He said: “It is particularly disappointing to see this contact go to an ‘out of area’ company when the county council has been running a campaign for individuals and businesses to ‘shop local’.
“I understand that there were at least two reputable local companies who could have carried out this work, possibly cheaper, but were not even given the chance to tender.”
Aerial shot of The Stray taken recently yet to be seeded.
Mark Smith, Managing Director of local contractor HACS, described the urgent decision as “rubbish”.
He told The Stray Ferret:
“I’ve never heard of such rubbish in my life. How could an event that happened last Autumn be urgent?
“They had six months from when the damage was done to appoint a contractor. We’ve had the driest spring on record so if a contractor had been appointed earlier they could have hit the ground running and seeded it earlier. Now, they’ve missed the optimum Spring sowing date for grass seed.”
The council expects the overall works to the Stray to cost £129,971:
- £38,105 for repairs to grassed areas of West Park Stray
- £65,385 for pavement, footpaths, Heras fencing, bedding and verge repairs, reinstatement of bins and benches plus any additional council work
- £20,156 to fix longstanding drainage issues
- £6,325 project management and delivery costs
Yorkshire 2019, the organisers of the UCI, has agreed to pay £35,500 to help restore the Stray.
Harrogate Borough Council has been approached for comment on the urgent decision, but had not responded at the time of publication.
Less than a half of Yorkshire dental practices re-open todayLess than a half of dentist practices in the region will open today despite the lifting of restrictions- many only providing a skeleton service.
However the British Dental Association (BDA) have conducted a poll which reported that only 42% of Yorkshire’s dentists will re-open.
Amongst those opening is Swan Dental Practice in Harrogate, their principal dentist Richard Bannister said:
“We won’t be running a full service straight away as we will only have one surgery open at a time. We will be focusing on the people who have had problems in the last three months, but right now we will be unable to do big procedures such as root canals as anything that uses aerosol sprays has been severely limited under the guidelines.”
Further data from the BDA has said that 54% of practices in Yorkshire don’t have the necessary PPE to resume face-to-face care. At the Swan Dental Practise, Mr Bannister said:
“We were very slow in receiving guidance from the government about PPE, but we have adequate supply for now unless the guidance changes. It has been challenging for us as there have been increases in the price of equipments, masks for example have gone up approximately 500% in price”.
Dental practices in the district have opened today, with a limited capacity for appointments.
Read more:
- Debenhams have announced their Harrogate store will re-open on the 15th June.
- North Yorkshire County Council has invested £1.3 million in an attempt to encourage residents to walk and cycle.
The BDA Chair Mick Armstrong warned:
“Those expecting dentistry to magically return on Monday will find only a skeleton service. Practices reopening across Yorkshire and the Humber now face fewer patients and higher costs and will struggle to meet demand. Dentists returning to work still lack the support offered to our neighbours on the high street, and even clarity on key worker status when it comes to childcare. Ministers must change tack if dentistry is going to survive the new normal.”
Silent protest in Harrogate supports Black Lives Matter movement
Members of the community showed their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement this afternoon in Harrogate.
Unlike other protests seen around the world, in Harrogate it took the form of a five-minute silence, maintaining social distancing.
Individuals and families gathered near Harrogate’s war memorial at 3pm this afternoon. Once gathered, each took a knee and fell silent for five minutes from 3.15pm. The protest ended with applause at 3.30pm.
Organisers Bill Rigby and Shan Oakes said:
“We, the residents of the Harrogate district, want to express our great sadness at the murder of George Floyd, and our solidarity with black and other oppressed groups in communities worldwide.”
Dozens of home-made posters and banners were on display
Protestors spread along West Park after the area around the war memorial became full
Individuals and groups of family members joined the protests
People of all ages gathered to protest, kneeling in silence for five minutes
A distressing milestone was reached this afternoon with two further deaths recorded at Harrogate District Hospital of patients who tested positive for covid-19 – bringing the total number of deaths in the hospital to 70 since the pandemic started. Both patient’s deaths were reported yesterday.
A further 72 people, who tested positive for the coronavirus have died in hospital in England. 17 were in the Yorkshire and North East region. The total figure for UK deaths stands at 40,465.
Related Articles:
- Clock ticking on NHS Nightingale Hospital contract in Harrogate
- Strayside Sunday: Why aren’t we being told about the future of the NHS Nightingale?
Patients were aged between 45 and 96 years old and all had known underlying health conditions.
On Thursday, the hospital reported that it had discharged 118 patients who tested positive for coronavirus – an increase of nine on the previous week.
Strayside Sunday: Harrogate needs to know about NHS Nightingale’s futureStrayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:
In the days after Boris Johnson introduced lockdown on March 24th, I wrote in the Yorkshire Post and Stray Ferret in praise of the Prime Minister’s leadership and in praise of the substance and effectiveness of government communication at the time. 11 weeks later the PM’S moral leadership is under threat and the Government’s initial clarity of communication has been lost.
This week, hot on the heels of the credibility-sapping Cummings affair, the government has asked for, and succeeded in bringing, all members from every constituency in the land back to parliament. Observing social distancing requirements, it took MPs 90 minutes to make their way through the queue to vote for a measure that disenfranchises any MP with an underlying health condition, or who is isolated for family reasons. This cannot be sustainable.
As parliament will soon be rehoused to make way for the pending multi-billion renovation of the Palace of Westminster, the Government should have grasped the opportunity for a continued virtual parliament, embracing technology in circumstances that make it both possible and advisable: Saving money for the taxpayer; repatriating MP’s to spend more time in their constituencies; closer and more accountable to the people they represent. Little wonder that Harrogate and Ripon’s own ‘virtual’ MPs, Andrew Jones and Julian Smith, both voted to return to Westminster.
Now that both MPs are back in the capital, perhaps they could ask ministers for urgent clarification about the future of Harrogate’s Nightingale Hospital, thankfully under-utilised for covid cases, which, from Friday past, was being used to provide CT scans for non-covid patients. In the “Before Times” Harrogate relied greatly on the income from conferences and attendees.
The NHS’s contract to use the Convention Centre ends on June 30th. Given the centrality of the centre to Harrogate’s economic future we need urgent information from the council about the plans for it. It may well be that the Department of Health and Social Care is hedging specialist beds capacity against a covid ‘second wave’ spike. It might just be that a decision is pending. Either way, any plan to get the town’s economy back on its feet needs the Convention Centre convening again, not least to generate some proportion of the £57m economic benefit it claimed to bring to the town in 2017/18. Even the public acknowledgement of uncertainty by Harrogate Borough Councillors Cooper and Swift is better communication than saying nothing at all and signals to the local business community that they need to make contingent plans for a much straitened economic future.
No political column this week can fail to mention the killing of George Floyd. As of writing, the charge against Minneapolis policemen, Derek Chauvin, has been elevated to second-degree murder and the other three officers face counts of aiding and abetting murder. Mr Floyd’s death was caught on video and, thanks to social media ‘shares,’ has now been seen by millions around the globe.
On Tuesday, activists asked us all to post a “Blackout Tuesday” black disc in place of our social media profile pictures and asked that we spend our time understanding how to combat the innate and institutionalised racism that the organisers say we are all guilty of, because we were born into white privilege. While it is undeniable that the good and, let’s face it, mostly white burghers of genteel Harrogate cannot in any way appreciate the lived experience of an urban black Minnesotan, to extrapolate from that to a blanket charge of racism is wrong headed and dangerous.
Which is a clue for those of you who’ve asked why I won’t participate in discussion on social media. A battle of ideas fought on social media can’t possibly have the space, tolerance and reasoned discourse needed if we are to bottom out loaded subjects like race and make progress toward real equality together.
I don’t believe it is possible or even wise to attempt to substantiate reason and complexity in 280 characters or, as Twitter says ‘less’ (when of course it should say ‘fewer’). Titbits of virtue signalling, local bores, selfie whores, moaners and the ‘let’s all pile on kicking of those who made mistakes years ago, in contexts long forgotten’, are not of interest and gladden neither heart nor soul.
I celebrate the power of social media to reveal acts of criminal violence such as the killing of George Floyd but I also denigrate its dumbing down and silencing of real public discourse.
Some things are as simple as black and white; it’s just that most things are not. Things in the public realm are and should be difficult. Reaching agreement and achieving compromise asks the best of us, while, IMHO (sigh), social media amplifies the worst.
That’s my Strayside Sunday.