Readers’ Letters: ‘I gasp at the colossal cars trying to squeeze in a parking space at Harrogate’s Waitrose’

Readers’ Letters is a free weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Alongside potholes and major developments, traffic congestion in and around Harrogate is one of the topics that raises our readers' blood pressure. This week, a resident puts forward an idea to ease it.

I cannot be the only driver who finds driving through Harrogate a nightmare every time I get behind the wheel or sit in the passenger seat.

The relief of sitting on the number 3 bus is immense, and becomes more so as traffic increases in this town of huge car owners!

The ever-expanding town in which we live is producing more and more traffic on our narrow roads. More and more land is being released for housing in this beautiful area.

One way of reducing this stress is to make smaller cars fashionable. I gasp in amazement at the colossal cars - both SUVs and saloons - squeezing into the narrow parking spaces in Waitrose car park.

I’d really like someone to enlighten me as to why people choose to buy these gas guzzlers when warnings of climate change fill the media.

Anne Boodt, Jennyfields

Ripon Cathedral’s compromises should open the door to a major asset

We receive letters both objecting to and supporting Ripon Cathedral’s £8m annexe plans nearly every week. This reader feels the focus on one veteran tree is “disproportionate” and hopes the revised plans will pave the way for a major new community asset. Here’s what he had to say.

This photo (above) was taken on November 16 during a concert at the cathedral, which saw more than 700 people in attendance. Surely this highlights just one way in which the cathedral already serves as an unchallengeable community asset.

The main purposes of the cathedral’s plans are to provide rooms for the choir to practise in, which currently don’t exist. Refectory facilities to cater for larger groups, which also don't currently exist, are also proposed, as well as creating toilets to replace the old and shameful facilities in Minster Gardens.

Of the 42 cathedrals in England, Ripon Cathedral encompasses the historic St Wilfrid’s crypt – the oldest cathedral structure still in use in England. But it stands almost alone in its lack of proper choir, refectory and toilet facilities.

Yet one tree has become the subject of disproportionate focus in the long-running efforts of many to provide modern and much needed facilities for the cathedral. Dean John Dobson has subsequently said the revised plans include a slight re-design and the retention of the beech tree.

It must be hoped that the compromises made will open the door towards the creation of a major collective city asset of both increased size and community benefit.

Rodney Towers, Burton Leonard

Click here to gift someone a Stray Ferret subscription this Christmas. 

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

If you enjoyed reading this article then please subscribe to read all our content. Subscription costs £4.99 a month or £49.99 if you pay annually.

That works out at less than a pound a week. You will also enjoy exclusive subscriber discounts. Click here to subscribe.