Editor's Pick of the Week: Harrogate roadworks chaos and housing fears

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Often when we write about roadworks at the Stray Ferret, our social media comments fill up with frustrated drivers and the occasional expletive.

This week, one of those drivers decided to ring us up to share her experience of the works in Harrogate.

On Thursday morning, Alex Vere, whose children are in years 7 and 11 at Ashville College, called us to tell our reporter John Grainger that it had just taken her 55 minutes to drive from her home in central Harrogate to Hornbeam Park, via the independent school.

According to the AA's Routeplanner website, the quickest route for this journey should take 14 minutes by car.

The culprit for this lengthy journey? Multiple roadworks which left Alex angry, but also concerned for the safety of children and the lack of access for emergency services.

Elsewhere this week, almost 800 people have objected to Harrogate Spring Water’s revised plans to expand its bottling plant.

The revised plans have proved to be divisive. At the time of writing, 791 people had objected to the scheme and just 11 had responded in favour on North Yorkshire Council’s planning portal.

The consultation is due to end on Sunday (November 17).

Our elected representatives gathered for a full council meeting this week, where one senior councillor all but admitted defeat.

Cllr Mark Crane was tasked with impressing on government ministers that North Yorkshire would not be able to cope with a dramatic rise in its housing targets.

The government wants to impose a yearly target of more than 4,300 homes in the county as part of its housebuilding agenda.

But, despite meeting the Lords minister for housing on Monday, Cllr Crane left the discussion fearing that his efforts were to no avail.

Finally, hats off to two Ripon voluntary organisations this week as they were awarded the Kings Award for Voluntary Service.

The Ripon Community Poppy Project and Lower Ure Conservation Trust were recognised with the honour this week — a truly remarkable achievement and well deserved.

John Plummer is away