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Six electric vehicle charging points are now in operation at the North Yorkshire Council controlled Cathedral Car Park in Ripon.
They add to a number of other locations across the city where drivers can re-charge their batteries. They include Blossomgate Car Park, Booth’s Supermarket at Marshall Way Retail Park, the Jack Laugher Leisure and Wellness Centre on Dallamires Lane, M & S Food at Rotary Way, Morrisons Supermarket on Harrogate Road and Phoenix Business Centre at Low Mill Road.
North Yorkshire Council’s executive agreed a new county-wide strategy for electric charging points this year.
The strategy showed there are almost 4,000 electric vehicles registered in North Yorkshire but just 225 publicly available charge points.
It is forecast that 3,161 charge points need to be installed and just under half of these need to be funded by the public sector at a cost of approximately £10.3 million. It is expected that at least half of the publicly funded chargers (724) will need to be ready by 2025 to meet demand.
The council has secured £3.2 million from the national Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) pilot scheme to install 150 charging points across the county.
They are being installed alongside battery storage units, charged by solar panels.
Following this afternoon’s closure of the Halifax, Ripon will have one remaining bank and no access outside shopping hours to city centre cash machines.
The closure comes less than three months after the long-established Barclays branch closed its doors on August 25, leaving HSBC – which has no external cash machine – as Ripon’s only bank.
The Barclays bank Ripon branch closed in August.
Cash machines are available during shopping hours at Sainsbury’s on Market Place East and Booths at the Marshall Way Retail Park.
Announcing its branch closure in July, Halifax said in a statement:
“Like many other high street businesses, we’ve seen people using our branches less frequently in recent years as more customers choose to do most of their everyday banking online.
“We’re responding to the way our customers use our branches. We’ll continue to invest in our branch network, but we have to make sure our branches are where customers need and use them most.
“As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to close this branch because customers are using it less often. In addition the majority of customers are also using alternative ways to bank.”
A report produced by Barclays in May to explain the rationale behind its closure decision, showed that more than 3,000 customers visited regularly for personal or business banking purposes in the last year.
But the bank added that only 121 customers use the branch exclusively for banking. Eighty percent of customers also use online and telephone banking.
The report said 41% of Ripon customers also use nearby branches, such as Harrogate and Thirsk.
Plans for a Lidl supermarket in Ripon have won the support of the city council.
Council leader Andrew Williams described a planning application by the German supermarket chain as a ‘win, win, win, situation’.
He said:
“It will bring 40 new jobs, increase choice for Ripon’s residents and also serve our growing population, with the new homes that we have coming on stream.”
Cllr Williams was speaking at last week’s full city council meeting at which he and fellow members supported Lidl’s planning application.
Lidl will join M&S Food at St Michael’s Retail Park if its plans are approved.
Harrogate Borough Council will decide whether to accept Lidl’s application to open a 1,100 square metre store at the £10 million St Michael’s Retail Park.
But the backing of Ripon City Council suggests there is support locally for the plan.
The Rotary Way site, off the bypass, is already home to a Marks & Spencer Food outlet, which opened last July.
Ripon, with a population of 17,000-plus and growing, is well-served by supermarkets, with Aldi, Booths, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s also trading in the city.
Lidl put forward its Ripon proposal following an online consultation.
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Following the consultation, a spokesperson from Lidl GB said:
“Many people have welcomed the proposed Lidl store, which would bring competition, increasing choice and providing a boost to the local economy through job creation.
“Many also mentioned that a store on this site would reduce the need to travel out of the city to shop and therefore keep expenditure in Ripon.”
The supermarket has also submitted an application to open its first Harrogate store on the site of the former Lookers car dealership on Knaresborough Road.
Marks & Spencer is likely to open its M&S Food store in Ripon in mid July, The Stray Ferret understands.
The M&S store, on Rotary Way, was originally due to open on April 29 but that was put on hold because of coronavirus.
It is part of the £10 million Saint Michael’s Retail Park development. A spokesperson for M&S said:
“We’re working hard to finish our Ripon store and as soon as we have more information on the opening we will update the community.”
The new store, located close to the Ripon bypass, was first granted planning permission by Harrogate Borough Council in 2017. It will provide up to 80 new jobs, including people who have been recruited locally.
Ripon is currently served by four supermarkets – Aldi, Booths, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
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German budget supermarket Lidl, which already has a store in Chain Lane, Knaresborough, has announced that it plans to open up to 89 new stores in Yorkshire and has Harrogate and Ripon on its list, saying:
The company, which is hoping to double the number of stores it has in the UK added, that it was looking for ‘prominent sites in town, district, edge of centre or out of town locations, ideally with main road frontage with easy access and strong pedestrian or traffic flow.’
“We want to double our portfolio. To continue our phenomenal growth we require further sites across the country.”
The proposed locations for Lidl stores in Ripon and Harrogate is not as yet known.