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13
Sept
Should there be more events held on Harrogate's Stray?
Six thousand revellers danced for 11 hours last weekend in what was widely regarded as a highly successful use of Harrogate’s greatest asset: the Stray.
In fact, Love to Be was so successful that it sparked calls on social media and elsewhere for more such events to be held on Harrogate’s 200 acres of common land.
Cllr Chris Aldred, Harrogate’s first town mayor, said:
Obviously, there would have to be procedures in place to make sure the Stray is looked after, but it’s a big area, and I’m sure more of it could be used for more events.
I think it’s a shame there’s such a tight limit on the number of events allowed.
Love to Be on the Stray.
And that’s the sticking point: holding more events would actually be against the law. The Harrogate Stray Act 1985 restricts the number of days events may be held on the Stray to 35 per year.
Since those days are routinely used up by events including the annual bonfire, fairs and sporting events, any increase would require a change to the Act.
Over the winter of 2016-17, Harrogate Borough Council consulted the public on proposals to do just that. The consultation attracted the largest number of responses ever to a council consultation exercise, with nearly 4,000 surveys completed.
A total of 53% of the respondents – 2,073 – disagreed with the principle of changing the Stray Act to allow for a broader range and greater number of events, including community and charity events.
But a lot has changed since 2017 – not least Harrogate’s demographics – and some feel that any similar consultation might yield different results today.
Cllr Aldred said:
I think it’s time for another discussion about it, especially with a new town council in place. It’s been some time since the last time people were consulted about it.
Stray bonfire and fireworks. Credit: Mark Dimmock.
But not everyone agrees. Asked whether she thought a majority would still be against a change in the law, Judy d’Arcy Thompson, chair of the Stray Defence Association, said:
I don’t know – I'm not Mystic Meg – but I do think it would be detrimental.
A lot of my family went to Love to Be and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very well run. I thought it was fantastic – I have no objections.
But calls like this are an instinctive reaction to it – people having a great time and saying ‘We must have more of this – it's fantastic’. It’s understandable – we've all done it – but I suspect it’s mostly people who don’t live near the Stray.
If we have something happening on the Stray all the time, people living adjacent to it would suffer. People often put up and shut up, but they might not if there were more noise and disruption.
We’re not killjoys in the Stray Defence Association, but the town needs to realise that people enjoy the Stray in lots of different ways.
There’s a lot of chat from people who say the Stray is never used, but it is. If we have, say, six to eight big events a year, that’s at least one every other month. That’s not underusing it.
Look out on an average day and you’ll see lots of people doing lots of different things. Some people go out in the middle of the night and star-gaze. It’s not my thing, but it is their thing. So it’s not one-size-fits-all.
Tom Gordon, the Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, is of the same opinion. Asked about changing the law, he told the Stray Ferret:
I don't think amending the Stray Act is the right thing to do. The 35 days of events it allows strikes a fair balance for Harrogate residents between being able to enjoy the Stray as an open green space and benefiting from well-organised community events.
The 2023 Food and Drink Festival on the Stray. Photo: Harrogate Food and Drink Festival.
The Stray has in fact been used in the past for all kinds of public events and entertainments. It has at various times been used as a horseracing track, an airfield and as crop fields – it even hosted the Great Yorkshire Show in 1929 – so its current status as giant municipal lawn has never been a given.
But some events have been more successful than others, and anti-event sentiment was inflamed by the aftermath of the 2019 UCI Road World Championships. It was hoped that the cycling extravaganza would be as beneficial to the town as the Tour de France had been in 2014, but in the event it bucketed it down for days, and the Stray ended up looking, as many at the time observed, “like Passchendaele”. The mud was knee-deep in places, some of it liquid, and the repair bill came to £130,000.
Mrs d’Arcy Thompson said:
The Tour de France was great, but the UCIs were an unmitigated disaster. It was hugely detrimental to the Stray, and the area couldn’t be used for nearly a year after the event was over.
We’ve got to be mindful of the fact that we’re a town built on water, and if we’re not careful we might end up with a muddy mess. I’m not saying we would necessarily, but we do need to be careful.
How West Park Stray looked before and after the UCI Road World Championships in 2019.
Even Cllr Aldred, who lives near the Stray, agrees that the UCIs were “detrimental” to it, and said:
I don’t think anything like that should or could happen again.
But, he said, those mega-events are not necessarily the kind of thing he has in mind:
It doesn’t have to just be about big events – there could be more smaller community events on smaller sections of the Stray.
Love to Be seemed to go off very well, because it was very well managed by the council. And that’s the key – events have to be well managed, and to be fair, the council does have a lot of experience of organising them.
We’re all proud of the Stray and want it to be looked after, so anything that doesn’t damage the Stray should be open for consideration.
And there, perhaps, lies the common ground between to the two sides of the debate: both want the best for the Stray, which they both see as Harrogate’s prime asset.
Mrs d’Arcy Thompson said:
I do get it – I've got six children and grandchildren too. But I’ve lived in a lot of different places and there is something very special about the Stray. We need to take care of it.
It says on the Stray Defence Association’s website that we haven’t inherited the Stray from our parents, but borrowed it from our children. It’s a cliché, but it’s true.
The Stray is a rare thing, and at a time when more people are leading stressful lives, it’s increasingly important.
Should there be more events held on the Stray? And if so, what kind of events would you like to see more of? Let us know at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.
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