Leeds Bradford Airport has announced it will host a fourth daily flight to Amsterdam with airline KLM.

The additional direct flight, which is now on sale, will depart every day at 1.20pm from August 28.

Three daily KLM flights currently depart from Leeds Bradford to Schiphol in Amsterdam at 6.20am, 10.05am and 520pm.

Nicola McMullen, aviation director at Leeds Bradford Airport, which is 12 miles from Harrogate, said:

“This new daily flight significantly improves Yorkshire’s global connectivity.

“The added KLM capacity enables passengers to have even more opportunities to travel to the four corners of the globe via Schiphol, one of Europe’s biggest travel hubs.”

Read more:

• Leeds Bradford Airport reveals new destinations for 2023
• £3.5m gym for cancer patients to open in Harrogate

A £3.5 million exercise and wellbeing centre is to open in Harrogate in autumn.

The Yorkshire Cancer Research Centre at Hornbeam Park will offer free, personalised fitness, nutrition and wellbeing support to people with cancer. It aims to help patients prepare for treatment and recover better.

The building will incorporate a café, shop and donation centre and will also become Yorkshire Cancer Research’s new head office. The charity will relocate from its premises at Grove Park Court in Harrogate.

It currently has 70 staff, including those at its seven shops, and expects to have 100 by March next year, partly due to the new centre, which will create 10 new jobs and 40 volunteering opportunities.

Its shop sites include Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough.

People will be able to self-refer to the exercise centre and visit for free, although they will need to sign-up and book.

Most users are expected to come from within 15 miles of Hornbeam Park and up to 1,500 people are expected to use the service in its first three years.

The gym will offer one-to-one support

The charity is recruiting fitness instructors with specialist cancer knowledge. Many sessions will be one-to-one.

Everything people do at the centre will be analysed and used to improve understanding of exercise as a treatment for cancer patients.

Yorkshire Cancer Research plans to open at least four new fitness and wellbeing centres across the region in the next 10 years.

Dr Kathryn Scott, chief executive at Yorkshire Cancer Research, said:

“Yorkshire will be at the forefront of exercise as a treatment” and the centre would “inform future cancer treatment in the UK and elsewhere in the world”.

Evidence shows that exercise can increase the success of cancer treatment, reduce side effects and speed up recovery, as well as improving life expectancy.

The programme builds on the charity’s Active Together service in Sheffield, which was launched in February 2022, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. So far it has helped more than 370 people with cancer.

Yorkshire Cancer Research will relocate from its current site at Grove Park Court in Harrogate.

Dr Scott said:

“Despite clear evidence that being physically active is safe and has a positive effect for people with cancer, exercise services are not routinely available and most patients are not as active as they could be following a diagnosis.

“Our long-term goal is for these programmes to become a standard part of care embedded in and delivered by the NHS across Yorkshire and beyond.”

Two teenage girls who were missing from their homes in Harrogate have been found safe.

North Yorkshire Police said the 16-year-old and 13-year-old were both reported missing in the early hours of yesterday.

However, a police statement this morning has confirmed that both have been found safe and well.

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The Conservatives have lost their majority on North Yorkshire Council following the defection of a councillor.

Mike Jordan resigned today from the Conservatives to become an independent.

He added he would support Pateley Bridge man Keith Tordoff, the Yorkshire Party candidate, in next year’s mayoral election for York and North Yorkshire and he also “might join the Yorkshire Party”.

It means the Tories now have 45 of the 90 seats on North Yorkshire Council — precisely half. However, if a vote is tied, the Tory chair David Ireton would get the casting vote.

Cllr Jordan said:

“I have listened to my constituents and I recognise their frustration with the Conservative Party and how their policies nationally and locally are affecting their health and wealth whilst destroying their communities.”

Yorkshire-born Cllr Jordan, who represents Camblesforth and Carlton, said his disillusionment with the Conservatives was more national than local, with the exception of the 20’s Plenty for Us campaign, which wants 20mph speed limits to be the norm on residential streets and in town and village centres.

He said he supported the initiative whereas “most of the Conservatives on north Yorkshire Council think it’s a waste of time”.

Cllr Jordan said the North Yorkshire Conservatives had not backed his bid to become the county’s first mayor next year and he would therefore support Mr Tordoff:

“I strongly believe Keith Tordoff, if elected mayor would make York and North Yorkshire an economic powerhouse, improve transport, whilst also through sustainability initiatives enrich the quality of the lives of people in the county.”

Read more:

• Pateley Bridge man to stand for Yorkshire Party in mayoral election
• FoI reveals Harrogate council spent nearly £3,000 on booze for staff party

The Conservative and Greens have named their candidates to fight a local by-election following the resignation of Nigel Adams MP.

Many villages close to Harrogate, Knaresborough and Boroughbridge, including Spofforth, Follifoot, Kirkby Overblow, Goldsborough, Little Ouseburn, Nun Monkton, Green Hammerton and Kirk Hammerton are set to go to the polls to elect a new Westminster representative.

The by-election was triggered by the decision by Boris Johnson loyalist Nigel Adams to relinquish his Selby and Ainsty seat with immediate effect.

The Tories were quick to announce Michael Naughton as their candidate to succeed Mr Adams yesterday.

Mr Naughton, who has twice stood unsuccessfully for Parliament, said it would be a tough task replacing Mr Adams, adding:

“People working and living in Selby want an MP who can help deliver on the people’s priorities and I will work with the government to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and stop the boats.

“Selby needs a Conservative MP to work alongside a Conservative government and help us improve everybody’s lives.”

Read more:

• Selby and Ainsty MP resigns with immediate effect
• FoI reveals Harrogate council spent nearly £3,000 on booze for staff party

Selby and District Green Party quickly followed yesterday by announcing Arnold Warneken, who represents Ouseburn on North Yorkshire Council, as its prospective parliamentary candidate.

Mr Warneken became the first Green Party councillor in the north of England in 1991 when he was elected to Harrogate Borough Council. He stood unsuccessfully for the Greens against Robert Banks in Harrogate in 1992 and Nigel Adams in Selby and Ainsty in 2019.

He said:

“I am an experienced hands-on politician. I have a proven track record and I work tirelessly for the people I represent.

“My ability to engage with people at all levels, and to negotiate compromises, leads to positive results and the best outcome for everyone, and the environment.”

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. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

How insulting it is that Yorkshire Water blame a shift in “expectations” for their failure to maintain clean and healthy water?

What they meant to say was, “the public have finally cottoned on to the fact that most water companies in the UK are doing an inadequate job of protecting this precious resource and the natural biodiversity that makes the British countryside so very special”.

It sounds like the cliche: you’re not really sorry. You’re just sorry you got caught. 

Mark Fuller, Harrogate

Harrogate is ‘dying slowly’

Why are we not talking about the closure of shopping businesses and the lack of keeping retail businesses and putting in place a Wilkinsons or a Home Bargains. Places people want to shop at. 

Also the lack of entertainment, there’s no bowling or crazy golf. There is nothing fun to do except for drinking and eating. There’s a cafe opening every week, a bar opening all the time but no real shopping opportunities. Empty retail shops are either going to be a bar or flats. 

The council don’t want to do anything, they are just wanting money and that’s it. It’s okay saying go to Leeds, but it doesn’t help people when the trains are always on strike and the traffic is absolutely dreadful. This town is dying slowly.

Chris Firth, Harrogate

Different parties, different policies

Andrew Jones likes to say it’s ‘Yah boo politics’ when someone points out the massive problems created by his party’s policy.  

Has Andrew heard that political parties have different policies? That is why there are different parties.    

The Conservatives promote privatisation: Margaret Thatcher pushed for the privatisation of water, so England and Wales became the only countries in the world to have fully privatised water and sewage systems.  

Tories believe that it’s OK for profits to be made from a basic service like water (or health, or energy, or  transport, or education ). Greens don’t.

Tories also believe in removing ‘the red tape’ and ‘the green crap’ (removing regulation and sustainability considerations).   

Well, now we are seeing the consequences of 13 years of Tory government.    

Trumpeting that he is saving the Nidd is pure hypocrisy, when Mr Jones’s voting record supports privatisation and its dire consequences: including the destruction of nature and theft from the public purse.  

He knows perfectly well that Greens would never have let the rivers get into this state in the first place, and we work full-time at all levels to right the wrongs created by his party’s short-sighted policies.

Shan Oakes, former Green Party European parliamentary and local candidate. Currently serving on Knaresborough Town and Scriven Parish Councils

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Selby and Ainsty Conservative MP,  Nigel Adams, a key ally of Boris Johnson, has announced his resignation with immediate affect.

Mr Adams resignation will trigger a third by-election in a Conservative held seat in the past 24 hours- following the shock resignation yesterday of former Prime Minster, Boris Johnson, and former culture secretary, Nadine Dorries as MPs. Mr Adams was minister without portfolio in Boris Johnson’s cabinet.

On Friday Mr Adams was not nominated for an honour on Mr Johnson’s peerage list.

Mr Adams said he wanted to “thank my constituents for their wonderful support since 2010”.

Last year Mr Adams had said he would not be standing again as an MP at the next general  election- today’s announcement means his departure forces an earlier by-election.

Mr Adams was first elected in 2010 and has defended the seat in three subsequent elections. He currently holds the seat with a majority of 20,137.

Posting on Twitter, Mr Adams announced he was leaving politics immediately.

Yesterday, Selby Conservatives selected an excellent new parliamentary candidate.

I’ve today informed the chief whip that I will be standing down as a Member of Parliament with immediate effect.

It has been an honour to represent the area where I was raised, educated &

1/2

— Nigel Adams (@nadams) June 10, 2023

• Harrogate district MP Nigel Adams to step down at next election
• Nigel Adams MP resigns from cabinet

In June every year, something close to a miracle occurs in a small village 11 miles from Harrogate.

Major names in the international arts world converge for 10 days on Aldborough — a beautiful and historic place but hardly known for capturing the zeitgeist.

For arts lovers, however, an annual pilgrimage to the Northern Aldborough Festival has become part of the summer arts scene. They park in fields, drink Pimm’s in a churchyard marquee and get to see the kind of names who usually appear in less soulful venues in Leeds or York.

The festival, which grew out of a fundraising initiative to restore the church organ in 1994, consistently attracts major international talent.

This year’s line-up, from June 15 to 24, includes the likes of South Korean pianist Sunwook Kim, TV historian Lucy Worsley, trumpeter Matilda Lloyd and a singing competition judged by a panel that includes Dame Felicity Lott.

Lucy Worsley is among those appearing this year. Credit Hay Festival / Paul Musso 

Festival director Robert Ogden, who overseas the programme, is best known locally for running Ogden of Harrogate, the fifth generation family jewellery business on James Street.

But Mr Ogden has strong credentials in the arts world: a former chorister at Westminster Cathedral Choir School in London, he completed a choral scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge before forging a successful career as a countertenor, singing around the world in major productions alongside the likes of Jose Carreras.

Since he became festival director in 2010, the festival line-up has broadened and this year includes spoken word events and jazz as well as classical music and culminates with an outdoor pop music party and fireworks in the grounds of Aldborough Manor.

Mr Ogden says the change reflects his own wide tastes but also acknowledges “we can’t rely on our core audience”.

Robert Ogden

Festival planning is year-round but he takes a two-week break from the jewellery business to focus fully on the festival in the immediate run-up.

He says things are shaping up well this year ahead of Thursday’s opening night. Asked for his personal highlights, he cites Matilda Lloyd, the opening night Haydn opera double bill, Monteverdi’s Vespers and the new £7,000 singing competition. He says:

“Of all the things we have done in the last 15 years this competition is perhaps the most exciting. I’m certain at least one or two of the semi-finalists will be household names in the next few years.

“There’s nothing a festival wants to do more than to unveil and support new talent.”

How does he persuade occasionally temperamental artists to head to the eastern side of Boroughbridge? He says it’s a combination of the festival’s reputation, the St Andrew’s Church acoustics, the setting and the welcome. Aldborough, he says, is the “perfect chamber music space” and there is something undoubtedly magical about it.

St Andrew’s Church in Aldborough

Mr Ogden says he never feels the festival is in competition with the year-round Harrogate International Festivals and thinks there is scope for another local summer arts festival “if it’s marketed well”. Besides Ryedale Festival and Swaledale Festival, competition isn’t fierce.

But it isn’t an easy time in the arts world. Brexit, he says, has denied many emerging artists the opportunities he enjoyed to develop his craft in Europe. The cost of living crisis had had an impact on ticket prices, but Mr Ogden says Aldborough hasn’t made “any major price rises”.

Future festival ideas include live streaming, although digital connectivity in the village isn’t great, and recording music under the Northern Aldborough label.

Read more:

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• Brew Bar owner opens new Harrogate coffee shop

He plans to stay at the heart of things, reporting to festival chairman Sir Andrew Lawson-Tancred:

“As long as I feel I still have that creative urge and impetus I will aim to do it as long as they allow me to.”

What is his message for anyone thinking of attending, perhaps for the first time?

“Aldborough is not far to drive from Harrogate. It’s an oasis of calm, the acoustics are wonderful and the welcome is wonderful. Try something new.”

Further information on the Northern Aldborough Festival is available here.

Harrogate Borough Council spent almost £3,000 of taxpayers’ money on booze for a staff party, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.

The party was held to mark the abolition of the council at the end of March — even though nearly all staff transferred to the new North Yorkshire Council the following day on the same terms.

The Stray Ferret reported last month the party cost £14,910. But a full breakdown of the costs, including the amount spent on alcohol, was not known.

The FoI has now revealed the costs included £1,438 on beer, cider and lager, £630 on wine and £587 on spirits. Just £376 was spent on soft drinks.

The council also spent £4,745 on food, £450 on a DJ, £765 on event staff and £302 on decorations. A further £5,556 went on technical equipment for the event, which was held at the council-owned Harrogate Convention Centre on February 23.

The party was held at Harrogate Convention Centre.

The Stray Ferret was alerted to the party by an unnamed source who said they were “appalled, disgusted and downright annoyed that this amount was spent without the prior knowledge and consent of the people paying for it”.

Conor Holohan, media campaign manager of the pressure group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added:

“Taxpayers will be shocked to find they were funding parties for council staff.

“While residents were struggling with the cost of living crisis, town hall officials were charging them for dinner and drinks.”

Final day parties

Seven district councils and North Yorkshire County Council were abolished on March 31 to make way for the new North Yorkshire Council.

Harrogate Borough Council’s final day staff party cost the most.

Scarborough was the next highest, spending £9,004, followed by Hambleton at £3,783. Ryedale awarded staff a £148 bonus and spent £3,001 on a party. North Yorkshire County Council did not spend anything.

Staff from the district councils, except the chief executives and a handful of others, transferred to North Yorkshire Council on April 1. It said in a statement:

“The new council for North Yorkshire did not play any part in sanctioning or organising any parties.

“For any further comment you will need to ask the district and borough council decision-makers who were in place at those councils at the time.”

Former Harrogate Borough Council leader Richard Cooper has declined to comment on council business since the authority was abolished.

Read more:

• Harrogate Borough Council spent £15,000 on staff leaving party
• Brew Bar owner opens new Harrogate coffee shop

Boroughbridge Primary School has celebrated its 90th birthday with fun activities and a look back at history.

Years 1 and 2 learned about play time games from the past, such as hopscotch, drop the handkerchief and catch the flag.

Year 2 children looked at photographs of the past and went to see where they thought they were taken from and watched a film from 1933, Alice in Wonderland, and compared it to modern films.

Key stage 2 children took part in three different sessions: playground games from the 1930s, a music quiz to see how music has changed in the last 90 years and a history session exploring the old school logbooks, photographs and newspaper clippings.

Friends of Boroughbridge School organised tea, cake, hot dogs and an inflatable.

Former headteacher Mr Roberts, who was in charge when many parents were pupils, also attended and said he was delighted with how well the school is flourishing. 

Year 5 teacher Ms Frampton was able to provide many historical photographs and school logbooks from past years.

Headteacher Emma Ryan said:

“The event was the perfect opportunity to involve the children within their history lessons and learn about our school and how much it has changed over the years.

“It was an absolute delight to welcome all our families into school to celebrate its 90th birthday.”

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• Boroughbridge butchers announces closure amid running cost concern