This week’s photograph was taken by Michael White, capturing a Barn Owl in flight early one morning in Staveley.
Pic: Michael White
Photo of the Week celebrates the Harrogate district. It could be anything from family life to capturing the district’s beauty. We are interested in amateur and professional photographs, in a landscape format.
Send your photographs to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk for a chance to be featured next week, we reserve the right to adjust and crop images to fit into our format.
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust is advertising for a new chief executive.
Steve Russell left the role last year to take up a secondment at NHS England as director for covid and flu vaccinations.
In December, it was confirmed Mr Russel had taken up a position as director of vaccination and screening permanently and would not be returning to Harrogate.
The trust, which runs both Harrogate District Hospital and Ripon Community Hospital, has been overseen by acting chief executive Jonathan Coulter since February 2022.
A notice on the trust’s website advertising the role closes on April 26 with interviews due to take place on May 10 and 11.
No details of salary is included. However, Mr Coulter is paid a salary of £181,000.
The role requires a candidate to have five years’ experience at board or director level and to ensure the trust’s services are “safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led”.
The move to appoint a new chief executive comes as the trust tackles long waiting lists, A&E waiting times and junior doctors strikes.
Last month, the Care Quality Commission also rated Harrogate hospital’s maternity services as “requires improvement”.
However, Mr Coulter said the rating was “not a fair reflection” of the service.
Birds’ nest causes freak fire in Green HammertonFirefighters were called to Green Hammerton shortly after 8am this morning after a birds’ nest caused a freak fire.
According to North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service‘s incident log, the nest fell down the chimney of a boiler, which then caught fire when it was lit.
Firefighters used water to extinguish the fire, which was confined to the base of the boiler.
Crews also “gave advice to staff on site”, the incident log added.
It did not say precisely where the incident took place or whether any birds were harmed.
Today also saw firefighters extinguish a small fire in woodland in Ripon at 3.10pm. The fire is believed to have been caused deliberately by youths.
Stray Views: Crimple Valley proposed development “insane”
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.
When Harrogate Borough Council published the local plan, it gave the house building industry 35 Christmas presents at once as they massively over-provisioned for the housing needs of Harrogate and turned over vast swathes of previously protected countryside to be turned into building sites.
Yet it seems the developers are not satisfied with that. This site is outside the local plan land dedicated to new houses and is designated as Special Landscape Area.
There is absolutely no requirement for this development and no justification for allowing it.
I believe that people here who value nature and the countryside are sick of the constant bulldozing of green space and just view this as money grabbing greed – selling the soul of the town just so that someone can see a big number on their bank statement.
This is a completely insane place to build. These houses will be so disconnected to any other infrastructure close by — the main exit being the new junction at the base of Almsford Bank.
Anyone who has ever tried to cross the road at this point will recognise just how intimidating it is – cars going north taking a run up round the corner to get up the hill, cars going south with the foot of the brake accelerating downhill. Even if you lowered the speed limit few people would stick to it. It’s an accident blackspot in the making.
The environmental impact of this small estate would be considerable. Few people would be prepared to walk or cycle out of that junction with the footpath being on the opposite side of the A61, so every journey is likely to be by car. I understand there is provision to plant trees to replace those removed, but it will take 50 years for these new trees to sequester the carbon released by those that are to be taken out.
Ian Murdle, Harrogate
Starbeck Residents’ Association has already talked to the council and is in ongoing discussion to ensure our local pool is reopened as soon as possible. We’ve been assured that Starbeck Baths are important to North Yorkshire Council as we know they are to our local community.
The SRA successfully campaigned to save the pool when they were threatened a few years ago and I did the same to get it reopened when it was kept unnecessarily closed long after lockdown.
So the SRA will do everything we can to support our swimming pool.
Chris Watt
Chair, Starbeck Residents’ Association
Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.
Village pub to be converted to homes as permission is finally grantedPlanning permission to convert a Bishop Monkton pub to residential use has finally been granted on appeal – just days after one of the applicants died.
Landlords Trevor and Carol Pawson had spent three years trying to get permission to create five new homes from the Lamb & Flag Inn, but Mr Pawson died on March 25. The couple’s appeal was approved on April 5, the day before his funeral.
Mrs Pawson told The Stray Ferret she intended to press ahead with development work, but did not yet know when it might start. She said:
“We won, so I’ll carry on, but for the time being I’m just taking one day at a time.”
Mr and Ms Pawson bought the Lamb & Flag Inn 30 years ago and ran it as a village pub until declining trade and ill-health forced them to close it permanently at the start of the covid pandemic in 2020.
In the autumn of that year, they applied for planning permission to create five new dwellings – two from the conversion of the pub, one from the conversion of some holiday lets in an outbuilding, and two to be built in the pub car-park.
They withdrew that application a few months later, but reapplied in April 2021, only to be turned down. Harrogate Borough Council planning officers refused the application on the grounds that “insufficient marketing” had been done to demonstrate that the pub could not be used for community use.
The Pawsons appealed, providing evidence of marketing, leading planning officer Paul Cooper to conclude that there was “no compelling evidence that operation of the facility would be financially viable”.
In his decision, Mr Cooper added:
“The proposed dwellings would have a neutral effect on the conservation area and not […] be harmful by their design or impact on the landscape or settlement as a whole.”
The Lamb & Flag dates back at least to the 1830s and was at one time one of seven pubs in the Bishop Monkton parish. Only one now remains – the Masons Arms, which still opens five days a week.
Government accused over special educational needs in North Yorkshire
Tory-run North Yorkshire Council has accused the Department for Education of “extremely slow” action and unfair funding of school spaces for vulnerable youngsters with special educational needs.
An officers’ report to leading members of the council highlights the government awards the county just 61% of the national average figure for special schools building schemes.
At the same time, the council faces a shortfall of about 100 places from September and 350 places over the next three to five years.
The report states using DfE data and criteria for specialist provision funding, North Yorkshire ranked 118th out of 150 councils.
Officers said this academic year had seen “a very marked increase” in requests for pupils to be assessed for SEN.
So while 700 new assessments had been a reasonably stable level for a number of years, forecasts of the likely number of requests for this year were between 980 and 1,090.
In addition, the report states resources available to the council to invest in key maintenance projects have reduced significantly in recent years, so North Yorkshire Council only receives about £6.3m to maintain 200 schools.
Exacerbating this, all of the council’s applications to secure government rebuild programmes at its special schools have been unsuccessful.
Officers said capital funding from the government for high needs pupils had been “significant but disappointing in comparison to other authorities”.
They said they had “significant concerns” about how the DfE allocated £88 per pupil in North Yorkshire compared to £483 per pupil in Kensington and Chelsea.
The report states several schools are in pressing need of repairs and Welburn Hall School, near Kirkbymoorside, has been identified as being “at risk of catastrophic buildings failure”.
However, the report states the authority has insufficient funding to tackle “significant concerns about the suitability and condition of our special schools”, adding its “overarching priority with the limited capital resource envelope available is to respond to create more classroom spaces”.
The report adds although the DfE approved the council’s bid for funding to create a Special Free School four years ago, the latest estimated opening date for the school was 2025.
The officers wrote:
“Whilst we were successful in securing the Selby Free School through the DfE Special Free School programme, DfE’s delivery of the school has been extremely slow.
“This is disappointing given that the 100 places that the school will create are urgently needed to address overlap capacity shortfalls and provide access to a local provision to families from the Selby area.”
A government spokesperson said delays in delivering the proposed new Selby school had included reaching agreement with the council for its contribution to the access road and abnormal works, and an unsuccessful procurement of a contractor to build the permanent school.
The spokesperson said it had strived to distribute high needs provision capital funding fairly and efficiently between local authorities based on both their size, and their share of estimated growth in demand for high needs provision between academic years
She added:
“Every child deserves to have access to education that meets their needs. Our recent improvement plan will reform the support system for children with special educational needs and disabilities, prioritising earlier intervention and creating consistent high standards across the country.”
Don’t watch explicit videos on commute home from work, says Northern Rail
Northern Trains which operates the Harrogate line has appealed to customers to stop watching explicit videos and making inappropriate jokes whilst travelling.
It has extended the strict ‘not suitable for work’ rule regarding the viewing of content to its trains and stations, after facing a problem with “a minority” of commuters.
This can range in scale from inappropriate jokes and bad language to offensive topics and explicit material.
The operator said:
“Whilst people are more likely to err on the side of caution at work, the rush to view content once they’ve left the workplace can mean the train journey home is often the first opportunity to take a look.”
Northern said the internet in its stations and on-board the trains is delivered in partnership with ‘Friendly WiFi’ – a government-initiated safe certification standard for public WiFi.
Friendly WiFi aims to reassure users that the service meets minimum filtering standards – particularly in areas where children are present, such as on station platforms and on trains.
Tricia Williams, chief operating officer at Northern, said:
“We welcome millions of people into our stations and on board our trains every year – and access to safe and reliable internet is part and parcel of our customers’ expectations.
“It is important, however, that people remember that some content is not suitable for everyone to see or hear – particularly children.
“As such, if something is ‘not suitable for work’ it’s more than likely not suitable in our stations or on board our trains either – so please wait until you get home.”
Bev Smith, director of Friendly WiFi, said:
“We are excited to be working with Northern as a ‘Friendly WiFi’ certified train operator.
“They were passionate throughout the process to achieve the standard to ensure a great experience online for all their customers whilst travelling with them.”
In 2010 Harrogate was dubbed Britain’s “porn capital” by the tabloid press after an analysis of residents’ internet use for the BBC2 show The Virtual Revolution.
Plans have been submitted for a further expansion of the Harrogate 47 business park next to the A1 (M) near Knaresborough.
Described as a “sustainable employment development,” the site is off junction 47 of the motorway and once completed will include employment space for office, hi-tech and logistics businesses.
It’s one of the key employment sites in the former Harrogate Borough Council Local Plan with the potential to bring 2,000 jobs to the district.
The development is being brought forward by Flaxby Investment LLP, which is a joint venture between Opus North and Bridges Fund Management.
The developer won planning permission from Harrogate Borough Council to develop part of the site last year.
It is bringing the development forward in stages and is now seeking permission to build nine further warehouses with a total size of 129,953 sq ft.
The first four warehouses would be located close to the Flaxby roundabout that was completed in 2014. These will be smaller starter units for business with a size of under 5,000 sq. ft each. The remaining larger units would be situated close to the Ilke Homes factory which produces modular homes. The plans include 72 car parking spaces that would also be added to the site.
Speaking previously about the scheme, Ryan Unsworth, development director at Opus North said:
“This development is key for the Harrogate and wider North Yorkshire economy due to its capacity to transform vacant land into office and industrial space for local, regional and national occupiers, and the vast job-creating potential it has.
“The delivery of Harrogate 47 will allow local companies to expand and grow within the region in addition to attracting inward investment into the district.”
The application will be decided by North Yorkshire Council at a later date.
No Harrogate district roads included in county surface dressing programmeThe new North Yorkshire Council is beginning its annual surface dressing programme — but it doesn’t include any roads in the Harrogate district.
Hundreds of miles of roads across England’s largest county are to be treated this spring and summer.
The work makes roads more skid-resistant and waterproof. It also prevents potholes, and can extend the life of a road by up to 10 years.
Cllr Keane Duncan, North Yorkshire Council’s Conservative executive member for highways and transport, said £8 million of surface dressing would be carried out this year — £2.6 million more than last year.
But Harrogate is the only district in North Yorkshire not to be included in this year’s programme.
Work is due to begin mid-April in the Hambleton, Selby and Scarborough districts.
It is due to carry on in Ryedale and Richmondshire in May and finish in the Craven district in early June.
Cllr Duncan said:
“Careful prioritisation of works, additional investment and close cooperation with our contractors means we will be delivering an extra £2.6 million worth of surface dressing schemes this year, the equivalent of an extra 60 miles.”
In this year’s Budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt awarded North Yorkshire £6.5 million from a £700 million fund to tackle potholes.
Details of North Yorkshire roadworks are available here.
Harrogate hospital food rated worst in country by patients
Hospital food in Harrogate is the worst in the country, according to patients.
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust received the lowest rating of all the hospital trusts assessed in the NHS survey.
Patients awarded the trust, which runs Harrogate District Hospital, 72% for food quality.
The next lowest was Mid-Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with 74%, closely followed by York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Private provider Bupa rated the highest with 100%.
NHS Digital published the figures as part of its 2022 Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment programme.
PLACE assessments are an annual appraisal of the non-clinical aspects of NHS and independent/private healthcare settings.
Harrogate fared better on cleanliness, ranking 53rd of the 222 organisations with a score of 99.49%.
But it was a lowly 192nd on privacy, dignity and wellbeing with a score of 81%.
A Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson said:
“We strive to provide the best possible levels of service for those people in our care and we are extremely disappointed that we were unable to meet the expectations of our patients when the assessment took place.
“We would like to apologise to anyone who has been dissatisfied by the service we provided.
“It is important that we learn lessons from these findings as food is an important part of a patient’s hospital experience. The quality of food provided to our patients has always been high, but there is the opportunity to improve on the levels of service.
“We take such assessments extremely seriously and have already started to make improvements to address the concerns that have been raised.”
“These improvements have already had a significant impact and we will continue to make further changes to ensure we are meeting our patients’ expectations.”