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10

Jan 2023

Last Updated: 10/01/2023
Politics
Politics

Second consultation to be held on whether to form Harrogate town council

by Calvin Robinson

| 10 Jan, 2023
Comment

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harrogate-1
What lessons can be learned from the 2015 masterplan?

A second consultation is to be launched into the creation of a Harrogate town council.

North Yorkshire County Council will write to households across Harrogate as part of an eight-week survey starting on February 20.

Harrogate and Scarborough are the only parts of North Yorkshire which do not have a parish or town council.

The second consultation is expected to be more detailed than the first one, which merely invited people to say whether they supported the idea.

Residents will be sent information including the number of councillors, assets and reasons for why it is needed.

A further survey on the matter was approved by senior county councillors today.

The areas in Harrogate which would fall under the new town council.

The areas in Harrogate which would fall under the new town council.



Cllr Michael Harrison, the Conservative executive member for health and adult services who represents Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate, said while he supported the second consultation, he had reservations over the town council.

He said:

“Members will be aware of my concerns more generally about proceeding to the next stage of consultation. I have made my views both informally and on a one-to-one basis.
“We are removing a layer of local government by moving to a unitary authority and we are immediately going to be replacing it in the Harrogate area with another, so there is an underlying concern there.
“We are creating a likely future tax liability on a population without any real idea of what that tax would be or what the residents would get for paying that tax and I think that was one of the comments that came back in the consultation.”





Read more:



  • Harrogate set to get town council after 75% back the idea

  • Revealed: the Harrogate areas set for new council tax charge

  • Just 3.5% responded to Harrogate town council consultation





However, Cllr Harrison added he understood it would be “an anomaly” to leave an unparished area in a county full of parish areas.

He said:

“I do acknowledge that there is an aspiration for double devolution with the new unitary council which clearly you could not achieve without a town or parish council for Harrogate.”


The consultation is set to be held instead of a local referendum, which the county council said was not “legally possible” after a request from Harrogate Borough Council.

The county council added it could not “fetter its discretion” to hold a referendum and that a further survey of residents may elicit a similar outcome.

Cllr Harrison told senior councillors that it was "vital" that every household was written to as part of the consultation in the absence of a referendum.