Boroughbridge news from the Boroughbridge district - Page 121 of 214

Heavy snow forecast across Harrogate district later today

The Harrogate district is bracing itself for heavy snow later today, with an amber weather warning in place.

The Met Office has warned that the most severe weather is expected from around 3pm, lasting until noon tomorrow.

The warning, which covers large parts of North Yorkshire, said:

“Heavy snow is likely to cause significant disruption on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

“[Expect] travel delays on roads, stranding some vehicles and passengers. Some delays and cancellations to rail and air travel are likely.

“There is a good chance that some rural communities could become cut off. Power cuts are likely and other services, such as mobile phone coverage, may be affected.”

There is still a high degree of uncertainty, however, with the Harrogate district being on the edge of the amber warning area and the BBC forecast showing only light snow and sleet for the rest of the day.

This morning, snow has been falling steadily in Harrogate and Knaresborough, leaving a covering on fields and gardens. However, roads are largely unaffected and remain clear.

To the north and west of Harrogate, conditions are clearer, with only light, sleety snowfall so far.

However, the forecast is for the weather to deteriorate later in the day, leading some traders to stay away from today’s market in Ripon, even though there was no snow early this morning.

Ripon market was quieter than usual after warnings about extensive snowfall

Ripon market early today

Brian Murphy

Fruit and vegetable trader Brian Murphy was on site as usual this morning. He told the Stray Ferret:

“We will be keeping a close eye on the weather.

“Other traders who come from further away have decided not to come today because of fears that heavy snow could see them stuck here and unable to get home.”

Meanwhile, RHS Harlow Carr in Harrogate is closed today, as is Bettys’ on-site cafe – though its shop remains open.

Harewood House has also said it will close tomorrow.

Harrogate College has issued a notice that it plans to close its doors at 1pm to ensure students and staff can get home safely.

⚠️ Important weather announcement ⚠️

Due to the heavy snow predicted this afternoon, Harrogate College will be closing at 1pm today allowing time for staff and students to safely travel home.

Online learning will take place, please contact your tutor if you have any questions.

— Harrogate College (@HarrogateColl) March 9, 2023

There are no school closures so far today. Some nurseries in the area have asked parents to collect children as early as possible this afternoon before conditions worsen.

The Stray Ferret will continue to cover the weather conditions as they change today, tonight and into tomorrow. Keep checking our site and our Facebook and Twitter feeds for the latest news, including school closures, transport updates and more.

Got something to report? Email the news team with the details.

‘Save our conference centre’: Harrogate’s Lib Dems and Tories make rare joint plea

Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors put their differences aside last night to call on the new North Yorkshire Council to back a £49m redevelopment of the Harrogate Convention Centre.

It came during Harrogate Borough Council’s final full meeting at the Civic Centre.

The council has previously warned that if the convention centre redevelopment doesn’t go ahead, the district could lose out on up to £250 million over the next 40 years in lost tourism and business spending.

A motion was proposed by the Liberal Democrat councillor for Fairfax, Chris Aldred, which was seconded by Conservative councillor for Valley Gardens, Sam Gibbs, to ask the new authority to confirm its support for a major refurbishment of the ageing facility.

It will take control of the building when Harrogate Borough Council is abolished at the end of the month.

The motion also asked that the new council “moves forward with urgency” in setting up a management board for the Harrogate Borough Council .

The project has moved to the design phase but where the money will come from to pay for it remains uncertain. North Yorkshire Council will make a final decision at a later date.

During the debate, councillors from both sides of the political divide lined up to give reasons why it should go ahead with many citing how the convention centre boosts the trade of Harrogate’s bars and restaurants.

Cllr Aldred said if the conference centre closed Harrogate would be “a very different town”.

He said:

“We across this chamber must not allow this to happen. We need to send a message to North Yorkshire — Harrogate wants to continue to welcome the world — and the best way to do that is to ensure the HCC gets the resources it desperately needs to be the economic beating heart of the district.”

Conservative councillor for Killinghall and Hampsthwaite, Michael Harrison, who will sit on the decision-making executive of North Yorkshire Council compared the redevelopment to the £68 million re-routing of Kex Gill but said the benefits were not as visible.

He said:

“The damage if investment was not made isn’t as immediately obvious as a road collapsing into a valley. The spending is just as vital.

“I’m confident that members of new authority get it. They understand the benefits and the damage if the HCC wasn’t supported adequately. We do understand the benefits to the town, district and county that the HCC brings.”

Both council leader Richard Cooper and opposition leader Pat Marsh also addressed councillors about why they were backing the redevelopment.

Ann Myatt, the Conservative councillor for Ouseburn, was the sole dissenting voice from either the Tories’ or the Lib Dems’ benches.

Cllr Myatt said she “has never been convinced” that the taxpayer should foot the bill for the redevelopment and that a focus on supporting the hospitality trade could hold Harrogate back.

She said:

“I worry by asking North Yorkshire Council to support the refurb then we’ll still have a town that’s dependent on hospitality.

“It’s also a dampener on new industries and sectors to come. I’d like to see Harrogate be a silicon town or an IT hub. We have highly skilled people living in Harrogate but they all go somewhere else to work and people living outside come to Harrogate.

“That brings difficulties. I don’t think we’ve really thought this through. Is there anyone in the private sector who could take this on? If there were that would give me confidence this is a viable long-term business.”

Ripon councillor calls it a “bottomless pit”

Many people in Ripon have been against the conference centre ever since it was first proposed in 1976, believing the facility offers few benefits for the cathedral city.

Ripon Independent councillor for Ripon Minster, Pauline McHardy told the meeting that the convention centre was a “bottomless pit” and the redevelopment should not go ahead.

She said:

“The conference centre will be a noose around the neck forever and people will be fed up of propping it up while other parts of the district are going short-changed.”

The motion passed by 29 to 3.

Harrogate Borough Council has a final extraordinary meeting of the council scheduled for March 22 before it is abolished after 49 years of existence on March 31.

County council to bid for funding to launch carbon neutral waste trucks

North Yorkshire County Council is set to bid for £300,000 to help improve the environmental credentials of waste collections and a controversial waste incinerator plant.

The authority has applied to the United Kingdom’s innovation agency for funding to investigate addressing barriers for generating low carbon fuel sources on the Allerton Park Waste Recovery site near Knaresborough, either as biomethane or green hydrogen.

The council is hoping to be among 20 nationally to be handed a Fast Followers award by Innovate UK, which aims to equip local authorities with the experience and skills to accelerate progress towards net zero.

The move comes as the authority is consulting with the public on its climate change strategy, which includes increasing access to alternative fuels for vehicles and investigating the feasibility of green hydrogen and other low carbon fuels as technology develops.

The strategy also includes a proposal to investigate how the council’s assets, such as land and buildings, can best be used to generate low carbon energy to offset council carbon emissions.

Significantly, the strategy includes looking for such opportunities at the energy from waste plant and closed landfill sites, and for vegetation management and food waste for anaerobic digestion.

An officer’s report to a meeting of senior officers and councillors states the potential gases generated at the site would be predominantly to use as a transport fuel for general and recycling waste vehicles as an alternative to fossil fuels, but options for income generation would also be explored.

The report adds other potential benefits would include improved energy security and releasing grid capacity for other renewable energy sources at the sub-station.

The report states after recyclates and organic materials have been extracted from the waste delivered by 70 waste trucks from across the county to Allerton Park, the remaining residual waste is incinerated in the energy from waste incinerator, which generates heat and power.

It states:

“Currently the electricity is sold to the National Grid and the heat is underutilised.

“Decarbonising both the waste plant and the vehicles that transport waste to the site is technically possible, but extremely challenging due to the technological change required, systems change and the costs to deploy.”

Cllr Arnold Warneken, whose division includes Allerton Park, said there was significant debate whether the energy from waste incinerator could be regarded as producing renewable energy as it relied on the production of waste to be sustainable.

Plans for 73 homes near nature reserve in Harrogate district village

A developer has submitted plans to build 73 homes in a Harrogate district village.

Thomas Alexander Homes, which is based in Leeds, has tabled the proposal to Harrogate Borough Council for land off Minskip Road near to Staveley Nature Reserve.

Staveley is midway between Knaresborough and Boroughbridge and has a population of about 440.

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust says the nature reserve, which the charity owns, is a “superb wetland” containing otters and orchids.

The plan would see a mixture of one, two, three, four and five-bedroom houses built. The developer has also earmarked 40% of the homes as affordable.

The site is allocated for housing in the Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-2035, which details where development can take place.

The developer said in its plans that the site represented a “logical extension” to the village.

It said:

“The proposal forms a logical extension to Staveley, the local authority concurred with this assessment by allocating the site for residential development to the scale of approximately 72 dwellings.”

However, residents have raised concern over potential housing on the site.

Graham Bowland, from the Staveley Residents Action Group, said a meeting was held at the village hall this week to raise objections to the plan.

He said:

“We successfully fought off development before and now we have an application for 73 homes on the field known as SV1 on the Minskip Road opposite the Staveley Nature Reserve.

“It will increase the size of the village by 35%, but sadly despite significant objections from residents and the parish council at the time, it still went into the local plan.”

A decision on the plan will be made at a later date.

Zoë Metcalfe confirms bid to become North Yorkshire’s first mayor

Zoë Metcalfe has confirmed she wants to stand as the Conservative candidate in next year’s York and North Yorkshire mayoral election.

Ms Metcalfe, who lives near Boroughbridge, is the current North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.

The Stray Ferret reported on Saturday that she was believed to be planning a bid for election.

Ms Metcalfe is the first person to formally declare an intention to stand for the role of mayor, which is being created as part of the North Yorkshire devolution process. The election will be held in 14 months’ time.

The mayor will oversee a significant budget for York and North Yorkshire covering areas such as transport, education and housing.

He or she will also swallow up the commissioner’s role currently occupied by Ms Metcalfe, who was born in Ripon, educated in Harrogate and lives in Aldborough.

Speaking to the media

In a statement issued last night, she said she was “uniquely qualified” for the role and had the “necessary business experience and close links to Westminster to promote economic growth”,

Ms Metcalfe is a former Harrogate borough councillor who was elected to the commissioner’s role in 2021 following the resignation of fellow Conservative Philip Allott.

Since taking up the role on a salary of £74,000, she has overseen the introduction of a Risk and Resource Model for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, which sets out how resources will be deployed from 2022 to 2025.

The changes included reducing Harrogate Fire Station’s nighttime cover from two fire engines to one.

‘Close links to Westminster’

Ms Metcalfe’s statement in full said:

“This is a really exciting role that I am uniquely qualified to do.

“The mayor will have responsibility for economic growth, transport, housing and regeneration, but will also see the integration of the responsibilities and decision making of my current role as Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner within it too.

“There is a rich synergy between creating safer streets and economic growth, two areas that I am passionate about.

“I have the necessary business experience and close links to Westminster to promote economic growth. I will also continue the great work I have started in turning around community safety in York and North Yorkshire and I will see through the transformation of both the police force and fire and rescue service.

“I have always been a supporter of devolution as it will bring many exciting opportunities for York and North Yorkshire, it will be a great platform to enable and enrich the lives of our residents and businesses bringing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment into our region”.

Government ‘refuses to consider’ compensating North Yorkshire for scrapped care pilot

The government has “refused to consider” funding the costs of additional work on a now scrapped care reform scheme in North Yorkshire.

North Yorkshire County Council was one of six pilot authorities chosen by the Department of Health and Social Care for the project, which would have seen a cap of £86,000 placed on each individual’s spending on their care in their lifetime.

The reforms would also have allowed people to retain up to £100,000 of their own assets and still qualify for funding for their care. The current limit is £23,250.

However, the government has since informed councils the scheme is being abandoned after initially delaying it until October 2025.

The council carried out an overhaul of its IT system as part of the move and looks set to absorb any additional costs associated with staffing into its own budget.

It was awarded £1,159,684 in funding from government as part of the pilot.

But despite this initial funding, the Department of Health and Social Care has refused to contribute to the ongoing costs.

Anton Hodge, assistant director for strategic resources at the council, said in a report due before councillors on Friday:

“Although funding already received to cover costs in 2022/23 will not be required to be repaid, we and other trailblazers have pointed out the ongoing costs of staff already appointed in support of the project and we continue to pursue that aspect.

“However at this stage the Department of Health and Social Care has refused to consider any contribution towards these and therefore any continuing costs will have to be consumed within existing budgets.”

Senior councillors had previously warned that the pilot could “bankrupt councils” if more funding was not made available.

Cllr Michael Harrison, the Conservative executive member for adult services at the council, said much of the work for the trailblazer was taken on by staff taking on additional responsibilities.

He added:

“The county council was asked by the Department of Health and Social Care to be one of six national sites for testing adult social care charging reforms. Early funding was identified nationally to support this work.

“Given that the bulk of this work involved frontline social care and customer services staff undertaking additional responsibilities, the national funding has been used to enhance existing staffing levels rather than to create separate new posts.”

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson said:

“The department is grateful to all the trailblazers for their work on charging reform and has been working closely with them to understand any costs incurred as a result of their work to date.”

Knaresborough’s King James’ School rated ‘good’ by Ofsted

King James’ School in Knaresborough has been rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in a report published today.

Government inspectors visited the 1,575-pupil school for the first time in six years on January 10 this year.

They described it as a “caring environment where pupils learn well” with “a strong focus on ensuring that everyone feels welcome”.

The report says the “vast majority of pupils are keen and engage confidently in their learning” and bullying is rare.

It adds the school, which dates back to 1616, supports children with special educational needs “extremely well”, enables sixth form students to “flourish” and organises “a rich range of extra-curricular visits”.

Staff are praised for their “excellent subject knowledge” and safeguarding is described as “effective”.

Reading concerns

However, the report says the school provides “insufficient opportunities for pupils to engage meaningfully with the world of work” and “pupils who struggle with reading do not receive effective interventions routinely” and is urged to improve in these areas.

This was King James’ School’s second ungraded inspection since Ofsted judged the school to be good in its last full inspection in December 2011.

Schools graded ‘good’ are usually visited once every four years to confirm that the school remains good. This is called an ungraded inspection.

King James’ School, which has 242 sixth form students, is federated with Boroughbridge High School.

Local Tories and Lib Dems urge new council to back £49m Harrogate Convention Centre upgrade

Local Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are to put aside political rivalries this week and urge North Yorkshire Council to support the £49 million redevelopment of Harrogate Convention Centre.

North Yorkshire Council will assume control of the conference and events centre when Harrogate Borough Council is abolished at the end of the month.

Harrogate Borough Council has staunchly defended the venue, even though it has often made an annual loss, on the grounds that it supports shops, hospitality and tourism across the district.

But there are fears the new council, based in Northallerton, might not be as keen — particularly at a time when the centre requires a huge investment to remain competitive.

A notice of motion, proposed by Liberal Democrat Chris Aldred and seconded by Conservative Sam Gibbs, will be debated at a full council meeting on Wednesday.

Councillors Aldred (left) and Gibbs

The motion says “a thriving Harrogate Convention Centre is central to the ongoing economic prosperity of the Harrogate district” and urges North Yorkshire Council to urgently set up a new management board for it. It adds:

“Council asks the new unitary authority to confirm its in principle support for the redevelopment plan for the centre and further asks that North Yorkshire councillors representing divisions within the Harrogate district are consulted during this ongoing process.”

Cllr Aldred, who represents Harrogate Fairfax, told the Stray Ferret:

“I am worried. People from outside the district will be making big decisions about the future of the district.

“We are all conscious of the enormous impact the centre has on Harrogate economically and the new council has this major development project that needs funding.

“”We don’t know what North Yorkshire Council is planning and want some urgency.”

Guesthouses and B&Bs near Harrogate Convention Centre

Bed and breakfasts near the convention centre rely heavily on it.

The motion is expected to be approved as it has cross-party support. But some councillors in Ripon, Knaresborough, Pateley Bridge, Masham and Boroughbridge, which are further away from the centre and feel less benefit, may rebel.

If it is voted through one of Harrogate Borough Council’s final acts will be to write to North Yorkshire Council asking it to commit to supporting the redevelopment. But it is far from certain whether the new authority will do so.

In January, Richard Flinton, the incoming chief executive of North Yorkshire Council, said the venue needed to be vibrant and relevant in the face of competition from a new venue in Leeds rather than “an enormous drain on public finances”.

The same month, the UK government rejected Harrogate Borough Council’s bid for £20 million levelling up funds to support the redevelopment.

Car catches fire in Harrogate district pub car park

Firefighters using breathing equipment extinguished a car fire in a Harrogate district pub car park this afternoon.

On-call firefighters from Acomb were mobilised at 12.49pm this afternoon to the Alice Hawthorn Inn at Nun Monkton.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s incident log said a VW Golf was “well alight” on arrival. It added::

“Crews extinguished the fire and dampened down surrounding area using one hose reel jet and one breathing apparatus.

“Crews gave advice to the owner of the vehicle. The cause of the fire is believed to be due to an electrical fault.”

County council plans programme to tackle children being ‘enticed’ to vape

A public health boss has revealed how an educational programme to counter the social media marketing of vaping products to children was being developed, amid growing concerns about the number of youngsters being “enticed” into using e-cigarettes.

Cllr Michael Harrison, North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for health and adult services, announced the move following the leader of Selby District Council questioning what action could be taken to reverse an apparent escalation in children vaping.

Cllr Mark Crane told a meeting of the county authority he was seeing more and more young people using vaping products, adding:

“I see them in school uniforms and I also see ones that seem very young to me.”

A NHS survey in 2013 of 10,000 children found three per cent of children aged 11 to 15 had vaped, but last year the figure had risen to 10%.

Cllr Crane was speaking days after England’s chief medical officer called for a clampdown on firms who use social media sites, such as Tik Tok, to market colourful e-cigarettes with flavours such as pink lemonade and strawberry, banana and mango to youngsters.

Sir Chris Whitty told MPs it was beyond doubt that firms were designing vapes to appeal to children, branding their actions “appalling”.

It is believed e-cigarettes have increased in popularity with children due to their relatively low cost, bright colours and fruit flavours.

Last month, the leader of neighbouring council Stockton, Councillor Bob Cook said the authority would lobby for more regulation on vaping following concerns over growing under-age use of the products.

Meanwhile, Dr Elizabeth Garthwaite, a kidney specialist and clinical director at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, has told teenagers at Ripon Grammar School that an increasing numbers of young people were presenting to hospital with problems associated with addiction and vaping.

She said while vaping products were initially designed as a nicotine replacement to help smokers break their addiction, vaping was far from harmless.

Cllr Harrison said there was “certainly something national government could do” to tackle the marketing, but the council was intent on educating people about the dangers of vaping.

He said:

“It is illegal to sell vape materials to under-18s, but it is clear that there is marketing going on that is enticing under-18s to take up vaping…”

The meeting was told the authority’s public health team were working on a programme of education and awareness which would be rolled out across our schools and young people in the coming months.

Cllr Harrison said the authority recognised the place of e-cigarettes in helping people to give up smoking, but the council’s educational campaign would stress that neither habit was healthy.

Underlining the scale of the challenge to educate young people, he added:

“You are fighting a battle if there’s advertising that is more prevalent on social media than mainstream media.”

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Ripon councillor calls it a “bottomless pit”

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‘Close links to Westminster’

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Reading concerns

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