Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
07
Sept 2022
Harrogate district remains the county's cannabis farm hotspot
The Harrogate district is still the place in North Yorkshire with the highest number of cannabis farms, data from North Yorkshire Police has revealed.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request showed that between 2016 and 2021, nine major farms with more than 25 plants were discovered in the Harrogate district.
That was almost double the amount found in the Selby district, which was the next highest with five.
This marked a continuation of a trend highlighted two years when an FOI request from the Stray Ferret found that the Harrogate district also had the highest number of cannabis farms then.
Between 2017 and 2020, officers made 22 arrests of people involved with cannabis farms in North Yorkshire.
Read more
- Ex-Harrogate guest house owner Yoko Banks given court ultimatum
- Drug pushers jailed after £140,000 cannabis seizure in Boroughbridge
Countywide issue
In total over the five-year period between 2016 and 2021, Police recorded 25 crimes relating to cannabis farms across North Yorkshire.
Only two crimes were recorded in 2016/17 and there were three each in 2018/19 and 2019/20.
However, there were nine in 2017/18 and eight in 2020/21.
On average, 323 plants were seized from farms. The largest number recorded was 2,797.
Since the available data ended in 2021, North Yorkshire Police has continued to deal with the issue of large-scale cannabis production in the Harrogate area.
Earlier this year, seven people were jailed for a combined 22 years after Police discovered £450,000-worth of cannabis spread across farms at three properties.
In February, two men were stopped on the A1(M) with 14 kilos of cannabis in their car. They were jailed for two years.
North Yorkshire Police was approached for comment about the latest statistics and why the Harrogate district is so popular with cannabis growers but did not respond.
0