Ripon councillor likens trail hunting ban to 1930s Germany

A campaign pressing for a ban on trail hunting on publicly-owned land across North Yorkshire has been rejected after being likened to an act of the German government in the 1930s.

Members of North Yorkshire Council’s ruling Conservative group and two Independent councillors who have formed an understanding with them voted to recommend the notice of motion not be supported when it goes before a full meeting of the authority in November.

After the vote by the authority’s corporate and partnerships scrutiny committee, Polly Portwin, director of the Countryside Alliance’s Action for Hunting campaign said it was “a victory for common sense”.

She said: 

“It would be morally wrong for any local authority to ban a lawful activity and we hope this ideological attack on the rural way of life is voted down at the next meeting of the full council.”

Labour councillor Rich Maw, who had proposed the motion, said the result had been politically motivated.

Cllr Maw said the law surrounding hunting was persistently being flouted across council land and that the League Against Cruel Sports had collated 29 witness reports of suspected illegal hunting, including eight incidents of cub hunting in the county.

He told members trail hunting was being used as a cover for illegal hunting, enabling “the inevitable chasing and killing of animals to be labelled accidental”.

Cllr Maw, who represents Weaponness and Ramshill, was accused of pursuing a “personal crusade”. He said: 

“As a council we have an opportunity, a responsibility to act. It is about recognising the current legislation is being abused.”

The meeting heard claims some 78 per cent of the public supported new laws on hunting to protect animals and called on the council to display a pro-active, preventative approach to animal cruelty, environmental damage and antisocial behaviour associated with hunting.

Labour group leader Cllr Steve Shaw-Wright said the council needed to support the will of the majority of residents.

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However, Damian Readman, a joint-master of the Derwent Hunt, told the meeting how the hunt accessed council-owned land “throughout the season” and that tenant farmers should be able to make their own decisions regarding the land for which they are responsible.

He said: 

“Trail hunting and hound exercising, which are both legal activities, are no different to any other lawful countryside pursuits like dog walking or mountain biking. Wild mammals are no more at risk from the hounds carrying out their lawful activities than they are from any other dogs.”

Tory members questioned the campaigners’ evidence and described the notice of motion as “utterly ridiculous”. They said there was “a danger of prohibiting lawful behaviour”, before claiming there was a “hint of the class war about it”.

After an hour of fierce debate in County Hall’s council chamber, its chairman Cllr Andrew Williams said the proposal would be “largely ineffective and unenforceable”.

He said those behind the proposal were trying to get the council involved in gestures and gimmicks that had no actual meaning.

The Ripon councillor added: 

“It’s a very slippery slope when we start imposing majority will preventing minorities from exercising perfectly legitimate legal rights. I point you to how Germany ended up in the 1930s when it went down a route of imposing majority will as opposed to minorities.

“It is for parliament to change law, not elected councillors.”

North Yorkshire trail hunting ban ‘unenforceable, but the right thing to do’

Councillors behind a push to prevent trail hunting activities on North Yorkshire Council’s vast estate say a ban is “the right thing to do” even though it may be unenforceable.

Councillors Rich Maw and Arnold Warneken said local politicians across the largely rural county had a moral duty to ban trail hunting, exempt hunting, hound exercise and hunt meets outright across all council land, where legally possible, including any new tenancies.

The Labour and Green councillors issued the call ahead of a meeting of the local authority’s corporate scrutiny committee today (Monday), which will seek to agree a response to a notice of motion for the ban to be put before all the council’s elected members.

The motion has been condemned by the Countryside Alliance as “anti-rural” and by some Conservative councillors as “a waste of time”.

An officer’s report to the meeting states trail hunting is “a legal, although controversial, alternative to hunting animals with hounds” in which a scent trail is laid “ostensibly to recreate the experience of chasing a real animal”.

It has been claimed that trail hunting is designed to replicate hunting as closely as possible, but without the deliberate involvement of live prey, however campaigners in North Yorkshire say they have ample evidence of animals becoming targets.

The land owned by the council mostly affected by a ban would be its farm estate portfolio, which is thought to be about 3,500 acres.

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The report highlights how recent years have seen several major landowners, such as the National Trust and the Church of England, suspend or ban trail hunting on their land.

It states while some local authorities such as Nottinghamshire County Council had banned trail hunting, Cornwall Council had agreed banning a lawful activity would be a direct attack on rural people.

The report states: 

“In considering the notice of motion put to the council earlier this month, members will recognise there may be issues around enforcement if a decision were taken to ban trail hunting on council owned land i.e. the huge amount of property/land owned by the council, and the possible financial implications and other resources it may require.”

In response to the report, Weaponness and Ramshill division Cllr Maw said trail hunting was “a smokescreen” for the act of actually hunting wild animals.

He added: 

“A ban would mean on the common lands we have got control over and building that into new tenancies going forward.

“It’s really about the messaging rather than policing it. With video or photographic evidence there is a way for it to be policed. If the hounds are in front of the horses and the hunt doesn’t technically have control of the hounds in a public area then they are breaking the law.”

Cllr Warneken said was also not possible to enforce every 30mph limit, and bans on people dropping cigarette butts or not wearing seatbelts, but that had not stopped those rules being approved.

He said: 

“Do we not do the right thing because we can’t enforce it? We are condoning breaking the law if you don’t think we should ask our new tenants if they would consider signing up to not allowing trail hunting on their land.”

Raw sewage spilled into North Yorkshire streets 600 times in five years

Yorkshire Water has admitted that raw sewage has spilled into the streets in the Skipton and Ripon constituency area 600 times over the last five years.

The figure was revealed during a meeting in Skipton yesterday when the company’s head of corporate affairs, Tim Myatt, was grilled by councillors about what the company is doing to stop sewage and other waste being discharged into rivers and public places.

Mr Myatt, who was a senior Harrogate councillor for the Conservatives until earlier this year, said Yorkshire Water was investing an extra £180 million to reduce discharges by at least 20% before 2025.

This is on top of a £147 million investment to reduce discharge at its wastewater treatment works.

But councillors said the company had not spent enough since privatisation in 1989.

Last month, the council’s planning committee refused an application for 23 homes in Bishop Monkton following fears the housing would exacerbate raw sewage being released into village streets during heavy rainfall.

Nick Brown, the Conservative councillor for Wathvale and Bishop Monkton, asked Mr Myatt how many reported incidents of sewage being spilled into Skipton and Ripon’s streets there had been in the last five years. Mr Myatt told him it was 600.

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However, this only includes details from the main postcodes in the constituency area so the actual number is likely to be higher.

A ‘monstrous’ figure

Cllr Brown described the figure as “monstrous” and said more investment was needed.

He said:

“Six hundred incidents of sewage in villages and towns is unbelievable. I find the lack of investment over a period of years is partially to blame for that. In future, the investment must be made sooner rather than later in curing these problems.”

Mr Myatt said Yorkshire Water has had teams in Bishop Monkton this week looking at the problem.

Conservative and Independent Group councillor for Ripon Minster and Moorside, Andrew Williams, said the company has been providing an “effluent service” for customers.

He added:

“We raised the issue of effluent in the street in Ripon and received a fob-off. It’s not good enough.”

Conservative councillor for Settle and Penyghent, David Staveley, said Yorkshire Water had “stone-walled and come up with bad excuses” when faced with criticism from customers over raw sewage and other issues.

Mr Myatt said Yorkshire Water wanted a “step change in transparency”, including more monitoring of their infrastructure to help understand how to reduce overflows. He said he was aware the public wants the company to “vastly improve performance”.

He said:

“We have invested since privatisation. It’s important to not think that pre-privatisation there was lots of investment and now there is none. 

“There has been significant investment and improvements in certain areas.”

North Yorkshire Council is currently putting together a local plan that will map out where housing can be built across the county. 

Mr Myatt indicated Yorkshire Water would like to become a statutory consultee on planning applications and that the new local plan will help it target investment into infrastructure.

He added:

“Knowing where growth is likely to be enables us to plan for investment and make the case for that in those areas.”

Council draws up North Yorkshire Combined Authority branding

Council officials have drawn up logos and designs for the new York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority.

The combined authority, which will be headed by an elected mayor, is scheduled to be launched in November this year.

It will include councillors from North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council and make decisions on matters such as economic development and transport.

Officials have drawn up brand designs for the new council at a cost of £5,000.

The designs, which were developed in-house, include colours from each of the authorities including North Yorkshire Council, City of York Council, York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership and the North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.

A spokesperson for the council said that the designs were drawn up “in order to minimise spend and utilise existing assets as much as possible”.

They added:

“The branding was developed taking into account all of the partners existing logos and colour palettes, including for the LEP’s Growth Hub and Invest in York and North Yorkshire brands.

“This was in order to minimise spend and utilise existing assets as much as possible. An iterative process, working through a number of concepts led to the brand that was approved by the joint committee.”

The branding is expected to be included on social media, the authority website, posters and staff lanyards.

What is a combined authority?

A combined authority is a body set up for two or more councils to make joint decisions.

In this case, North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council would come together to make decisions on matters such as economic development and transport.

It will be a separate body to North Yorkshire Council and City of York Council.

The closest example of this is West Yorkshire Combined Authority, which recently has led on the £11.9 million Harrogate Station Gateway scheme, as well as similar schemes in Skipton and Selby.

The combined authority would be headed by a mayor who is directly elected by the public.

An election for the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire is set to be held in May 2024.

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North Yorkshire tourism bosses warned not to repeat past mistakes

Officials developing a destination management plan to replace Welcome to Yorkshire have been urged to learn the lessons from the past.

A meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s transition scrutiny committee yesterday heard councillors call for the local authority to protect the Yorkshire brand, take more heed of the views of small businesses and work to attract international events without losing oversight of the consequences of tourism on communities.

Councillors were told the local authority was weeks away from submitting a destination management plan  to Visit England to join neighbouring areas such as East Riding, Durham and Cumbria in becoming a local visitor economy partnership, to gain more national funding and support.

Officers told the meeting at County Hall in Northallerton they had consulted extensively with the sector on the framework which would lead, influence and coordinate all of “the aspects of our destination which contribute to a visitor’s experience”.

They said the plan would take account of the needs of visitors, residents, businesses, and the environment, joining all organisations with an interest in the industry responsible for 10 per cent of the county’s economy.

It is planned to bring Yorkshire LVEPs together in a destination development partnership, which would then identify collective strategic priorities.

In addition, the council is also part of a group looking at marketing North Yorkshire at a national and international level, the meeting was told.

Councillors heard while the council’s ambition is to increase the £2bn visitor spend by about 5% a year and increase the proportion overnight visitors to 20% of all visits, there were concerns the latter aim could exacerbate housing and staff accommodation issues in some areas.

An officer told members the council was confident the plan’s priorities reflected what the industry was wanting.

He added: 

“We have a really ambitious set of targets to grow it year on year and to retain more overall visitors.

“We get a lot of day visitors but there is a real shift to try and get overnight stays and the retention time being longer.

“We want that plan to be private sector-led, but also with a clear steer from where the local authority is taking the lead. We are not under-estimating our leadership role in this, but we also want the sector to own and help us deliver these ambitions.”

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However, Helmsley division councillor George Jabbour highlighted how comments by the Federation of Small Businesses, which represents 4,000 businesses in the county and York, on the council’s plan had been “very far from glowing”.

FSB comments included: 

“Businesses are frustrated after being excited about the new start that this is where we have landed – they don’t see the purpose of the DMP or what need it answers due to the confused plan and lack of vision.”

Cllr Jabbour added: 

“North Yorkshire County Council had too close a relationship with Welcome to Yorkshire. There were a few scandals involved there. It is a concern from the start we don’t get as close and that the new council makes the same mistakes as before.

“The reality is we have got to make sure we have something quite ambitious and hopefully we will have enough time to change and improve the final plan.”

Officers said they would meet the FSB to address concerns, but some businesses appeared to have confused the management plan for a strategy.

The committee’s acting chairman, Cllr Bryn Griffiths, told officers: 

“Don’t lose the Yorkshire brand. The Yorkshire brand is so strong. Don’t degenerate it.”

No local schools due to close because of crumbling concrete

None of the schools facing closure in England and Wales due to crumbling roofs are in the Harrogate district.

The government said last week 104 schools in England and Wales would fully or partially close due to safety fears connected with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

Raac, which is cheap building material popular between the 1960s and 1980s, has been compared to “chocolate Aero” because it contains pockets of air.

Children in North Yorkshire are due to go back to school tomorrow for the autumn term and the government has yet to name which schools are affected.

Stuart Carlton, director of children and young people’s service at North Yorkshire Council, said only one school in North Yorkshire was affected . He said:

“We are aware of one school in the county which has been constructed using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

“Scalby School in Scarborough has been asked to close the buildings affected. The school is required to make suitable arrangements to continue the education of their 1,000 pupils until safety work can be carried out.

“Scalby School is the only one in North Yorkshire on the current Department for Education list of 104 schools affected.”

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North Yorkshire Council to re-examine planning decisions by unelected officers

North Yorkshire Council officers have defended its planning service following a sharp decline in the number of development proposals being decided by councillors.

A meeting of the council’s transition scrutiny committee was told the authority was re-examining the balance between planning applications which could be made by unelected council staff and ones which went before the authority’s six area planning committees.

The authority’s planning service has been the focus of criticism by many councillors since it took over from the seven district and borough councils in April, with some areas seeing decreases of 60% in the number of decisions by councillors.

A recent meeting of all the planning committee chairs heard claims the council was only giving councillors the chance to decide upon developments it was legally bound to and had made its scheme of delegating decisions to planning officers “so tight that nothing’s really coming through”.

Harrogate councillor Philip Broadbank, a Liberal Democrat who represents Fairfax and Starbeck, told the meeting since April Harrogate borough had seen two planning meetings cancelled due to the lack of proposals being put before councillors and just one proposal being considered at other meetings.

He added that the move had led councillors to conclude that they were no longer closely involved with the planning process.

Cllr Broadbank said while 92% of planning applications had previously been decided by officers, it appeared the number being decided by elected members was getting fewer.

The meeting heard while much time was spent developing conditions which developers would have to adhere to to make a development acceptable, “sometimes it’s quite obvious nothing is done about enforcement to follow up if anything goes wrong”.

Cllr Broadbank said: 

“Elected members are there for a purpose. They are the ones who go round knocking on doors, they are the ones who need to be involved some of the decision-making that’s going on.”

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The meeting was told town and parish councils were “tearing their hair out” over the lack of or delays in enforcement action, often due to a lack of available legal support.

Committee members heard the Scarborough borough area had had no dedicated enforcement resource “for quite some time”, while Richmondshire was in a similar situation.

Grappling with change

Planning officers said councillors were able to call in contentious applications for committees to consider if there were sound planning reasons.

They said the council was examining where to focus its enforcement resources and legal support needed for an effective enforcement service.

Officers said they were “grappling with” whether the authority’s delegation system needed changing and that they were working to understand which proposals were decided by committees previously.

An officer underlined there had been no attempt to try to block some proposals going before councillors and officers were “trying to understand where those lines should be drawn”.

He added the authority would examine changing the balance over which planning applications should go before councillors.

The officer said: 

“The intention here isn’t to disenfranchise members. Members are a key part of this process.”

Council consults on new social housing plan for Harrogate district

A consultation on introducing a “choice-based” social housing system in the Harrogate district has been launched.

North Yorkshire Council is asking residents for their views on the proposal.

The plan comes as part of the authority’s move to introduce a single housing policy for the county.

From April 2025, the council must have a single policy and allocations scheme for North Yorkshire.

The initiative, which allows tenants to bid for homes advertised through the authority by housing associations, aims to give those on the waiting list more choice over where they live.

The authority set up its choice-based scheme, called North Yorkshire Home Choice, in 2011. However, it currently does not operate in the Harrogate district.

Cllr Simon Myers, the council’s executive councillor for housing, said:

“By creating a new social housing allocations policy we will create a single, unified social housing allocations scheme, which will be beneficial to all our tenants and applicants.

“However, it is important we get the views of our proposals for a new policy from all existing applicants on the current schemes, as well as our partners, and this consultation aims to do just that. We hope everyone will take part and attend the face-to-face sessions if they need more information.”

A consultation on the proposal will run until November 27.

You can have your say on the single housing policy here.

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Harrogate hospital roof contains crumbling concrete

Harrogate District Hospital’s roof contains the type of crumbling concrete that has prompted the closure of more than 100 schools.

Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has confirmed its buildings contain reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

The material, popular between the 1960s and 1980s, has been compared to “chocolate Aero”. It has led to one hospital using 3,000 steel props to keep its roof up.

A trust spokesperson said:

“We are following HSE and NHS England guidance regarding managing the risk posed by RAAC roofing and are doing all we can to ensure that any RAAC used in our buildings does not pose any threat to the safety of our patients, staff and visitors.”

The trust is the district’s biggest employer with more than 4,000 staff employed across its sites. The main hospital was built in 1975.

The spokesperson added the trust had been undertaking surveys since last year “to identify areas of concern and monitor all RAAC roofing on our trust sites”. They added:

“We have mitigated risks that have so far been identified through remedial work, such as providing additional structural support where it is required. This work will continue to be undertaken to address any further issues that are found.

“The trust is part of an NHS England scheme to eradicate this form of roofing. We have submitted a bid to NHS England for funding so that we can develop plans to remove all RAAC from Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust sites by 2030 at the latest.”

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Concerns about RAAC were flagged up at a trust board meeting in May this year.

A report by the director of strategy said RAAC roofing had been surveyed and “remedial works were underway and mitigation was in place”.

The corporate risk posed by RAAC was rated at 12 — lower than managing the risk of injury from fire and control of contractors and construction work, which were both rated at 16.

It added failure to manage the risk associated with RAAC could lead to “major injuries, fatalities, or permanent disability to employees, patients and others”.

A financial plan included in board papers said the trust had allocated £700,000 for backlog maintenance but this “excluded any national funding for RAAC”.

North Yorkshire Council launches investigation into rising number of empty homes

North Yorkshire Council has announced a probe into why the number of empty homes in the county continues to rise.

Cllr Simon Myers, the council’s executive member for culture, arts and housing, said it was “distressing” that 6,500 people were on waiting lists for social housing in a county where more than 3,000 properties were standing empty.

An officer’s report to a meeting of the council’s leading members highlighted how at the end of June there were nearly 900 empty homes in the Harrogate borough area and more than 700 in Scarborough borough, while there were 500-plus empty homes in the Craven and Hambleton areas.

Both Richmondshire and Ryedale had nearly 400 empty homes and there were more than 200 in the Selby area.

The investigation comes as the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, which is at the report stage in the House of Lords, moves to reduce the minimum period councils can charge a premium for empty premises from two years to one year.

It is almost a year since North Yorkshire Council adopted a policy to implement a 100 per cent council tax premium for empty premises that have been left unoccupied and substantially unfurnished for a year or more, from April next year.

The report added demand for affordable housing was set to rise as residents struggle with mortgage payments and rental costs, and fuelled by a forecast downturn in housebuilding completions, changes to planning policy, rising material costs and wider economic pressures linked to the cost of living.

The report stated: 

“Maintaining a robust affordable homes programme is essential to meet this future demand.”

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After being pressed on how the council intended to bring empty homes back into use, Cllr Myers told the meeting empty properties represented some 1.1% of housing stock in North Yorkshire, while the national average is one per cent and the average for Yorkshire and Humber is 1.6%.

He said: 

“It’s distressing when you have 6,500 people on housing waiting lists in North Yorkshire, to know that there are over 3,000 empty properties.

“In Yorkshire and Humber terms, we’re at the lower end of the scale. However, it is not something we want to read about when we know the pressures on people finding housing.”

Cllr Myers said causes behind the rise in empty properties may include the economy, leading to properties not selling quickly, and changes in legislation leading landlords to take properties out of the rental market.

He said the authority was having to develop a county-wide strategy as some boroughs and districts had tackled the issue, going as far as compulsory purchases, some did not have a strategy and only Scarborough and Harrogate had designated empty homes officers.

Pledging to “get to the bottom of it and work out a strategy about what can be done”, Cllr Myers added: 

“You can’t help but look at the waiting lists for affordable housing and consider the question of empty homes and think something has to be done here. So we’ve got our eyes on it.”