Editor’s Pick of the Week: Pasty wars and cherry blossom overload in Harrogate

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Can you have too much of a good thing? Harrogate is not exactly short of bakeries but two more are coming, from contrasting ends of the value scale.

We revealed this week that the upmarket Gail’s, (sausage roll, £4.50) is moving to James Street in the town.

Meanwhile, the more budget-friendly Greggs (sausage roll, £1.35), is about to open at the Morrisons garage in Starbeck.

This will be the third Greggs in Harrogate, which also has numerous independent bakeries. Can they all survive, or do we have an endless appetite for pasties and other savoury treats?

There’s an endless amount of cherry blossom on the Stray at the moment — and more people admiring it than ever.

A far healthier pastime than pasty-guzzling, surely. But the annual display is becoming a victim of its own success in the eyes of some, who found their stroll along cherry blossom walk spoiled by loud rave music and bad behaviour. With the weather set fair, is a repeat on the cards this weekend?

Harrogate is undoubtedly in the premier league of floral towns in England, as highlighted by the four-day spring flower show, which started at the Great Yorkshire Events Centre on Sunday.

The town’s football team, however, faces possible relegation from the English Football League this weekend. The country’s leading football finance expert explained what it could mean this week.

To make matters worse, little old Harrogate’s eight-year lording it over York City could end, with the latter hoping to secure promotion back to the English Football League today (April 25). It would be good to see a North Yorkshire derby next season — hopefully in the English Football League.

The row over North Yorkshire Council charging people to use public toilets shows less sign of easing than diarrhoea on a Christmas visitor to Nidd Hall.

The furore has already prompted a ‘pay to pee’ campaign by former highways chief Councillor Keane Duncan and now Harrogate town councillor Josie Caven has described it as a bladder tax.

Conservative-run North Yorkshire Council has found a novel way of deflecting criticism — blaming former Tories!

Conservative-run Harrogate Borough Council, which was abolished in 2023, got the flack for the state of public toilets and rundown Ripon Town Hall this week by members of the Conservative and Independents group at County Hall in Northallerton.

The local Tories have also been blaming David Skaith, the Labour mayor of York and North Yorkshire, for raiding money earmarked for North Yorkshire’s roads and giving it to York.

They put the boot in again this week, after the Stray Ferret revealed Mr Skaith spent a touch below £1,000 on Christmas cards last year. Too much of a good thing?