Editor's Pick of the Week: Council tax, Kex Gill and traffic light blackouts

Brace yourselves because council tax bills will soon be coming through your letter boxes.

Indeed, it is that time of year when council finance bosses gather together to come up with a budget for the year.

This week, we finally got to see the fruits of their labour which included a 4.99% council tax hike, a £17 million shortfall and a plan to make around £28 million in savings over the next three years.

Much of the need for savings is because the government has withdrawn a key chunk of grants from North Yorkshire Council, including a £14 million rural services grant.

The situation is pretty dire — so much so that even opposition councillors are blaming the Labour government for putting them in a difficult position rather than taking aim at the Conservative-run administration.

In other news, our editor John Plummer had the pleasure of spending an evening with the council’s top brass on Monday night.

Richard Flinton, chief executive of the council, Karl Battersby, corporate director for environment, and the council leader Cllr Carl Les gave businesses an update on various matters including council finances and the Kex Gill project.

The audience at Rudding Park were even treated to a flyover video of the £82.5 million Kex Gill project, which we featured in our coverage and you can watch here.

Finally, commiserations if you were one of the unlucky drivers who had to contend with the traffic light blackout on Leeds Road this week..

The junction at M&S saw traffic slow to a low of 10 miles per hour during rush hour.

At the time of writing, temporary lights have been installed but that has done little to alleviate the queues backing up down Leeds Road.

When it rains, it pours when it comes to traffic in Harrogate.

John Plummer is away.