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17
Aug 2024
Editor’s Pick of the Week: Gareth Southgate goes septic in Harrogate, Ripon campaigns and Knaresborough gets trippy
A month ago, Gareth Southgate was worrying about strikers. Now he’s more concerned about septic tanks in the garden of his home near Harrogate.
The former England manager and popular local resident has applied for listed building consent to replace a septic tank and rebuild a dry stone wall at his 4.5-acre Jacobean pile at Swinsty.
There could be good reasons for the Post Office to retain the Knaresborough postmaster whose company went into liquidation owing £370,000 when the town’s branch eventually re-opens. But it has decided we don’t need to know what they are.
The Post Office is simply refusing to answer questions on the subject. Knaresborough was one of various branches run by Nottingham-based VPS PVT Ltd, whose sole director was Ankur Singh. The company owed £269,000 to HMRC alone when it filed for liquidation on June 13.
The Stray Ferret has asked many times what consideration the Post Office gave to this in its consultation on relocating the branch into a pharmacy which concluded this week the same postmaster could reopen there. Answer came there none.
Rick Brewis represented the spirit of the forest at the Knaresborough celebration.
Knaresborough struck the sweetest as well as the sourest note this week. Rarely have I attended such a joyful gathering as Tuesday’s celebration of 60 acres of the once ancient Forest of Knaresborough being returned to public ownership after enclosure stripped access rights away 250 years ago.
There was a protest song, poetry, a man dressed as a tree and even a few tears. It was all a bit trippy. But a massive well done to everyone involved in the Knaresborough Forest Park campaign, whose efforts have broadened the publicly owned green corridor between Harrogate and Knaresborough created by Long Lands Common.
Others campaigns are available: the one to save Ripon and Knaresborough markets is gathering pace but the one to save Ripon’s military heritage is turning into trench warfare. Surely some of the unique features of the Clotherholme site can be worked into the 1,300-home housing scheme and made into a visitor attraction? Ripon has such a military tale to tell.
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