Is battle to save Ripon’s military heritage inching to victory?Ripon’s 1,300-home Clotherholme scheme: sums finalised for schools, GPs, sport and busesHow Ripon was at the forefront of wartime bomb disposal techniquesHow bridges designed in Ripon helped win the Second World WarRipon council leader calls for decision on 1,300 homes to be deferred

The leader of Ripon City Council is to call for a decision on whether to allow 1,300 homes to be built in the city to be deferred today.

Government agency Homes England has applied to redevelop Ministry of Defence land in the north-west of the city, between Clotherhome Road and Kirkby Road,

North Yorkshire Council’s strategic planning committee, which adjudicates on large applications, has been recommended to approve the scheme when it meets at 10am this morning.

Cllr Williams warned the plans would lead to “traffic chaos” and the “destruction” of key military heritage sites. He said it would be premature to make a decision until these issues are resolved.

Cllr Williams, who also represents Ripon Minster and Moorside on North Yorkshire Council, told the Stray Ferret:

“I am attending the meeting and will be calling in the strongest terms for members of the strategic planning committee to defer their decision on the Homes England application.

“The application is premature and I find it disingenuous of Homes England to agree to meet with the city council in July to discuss unresolved matters of major concern to the people of Ripon, while seeking approval for their proposals today.”

Cllr Williams added:

“These matters include the city council’s unanimous call for the protection of military heritage on the barracks site and concerns we have also raised about a proposed change to the Somerset Row and Low Skellgate junction.

“As the application stands, the military heritage, which is part of Ripon’s history, is threatened with destruction, which is totally unacceptable, while the planned junction change, which would prevent those heading towards the city from turning right, would lead to traffic chaos, as drivers will either have to go to the Bedern Bank roundabout and double back on themselves or face a long detour on unsuitable roads.”

The 98-page report by council case officer Kate Broadbank recognises the significance of Ripon’s military heritage. It says “Deverell Barracks has extensive heritage significance” and that the demolition of buildings, such as a 1939 military camp and training bridges “represents the most severe harm to significance as it and most of the components within it will be lost”.

One of the bridges.

The report talks about including measures such as a “public art strategy reflecting the history of the barracks” and installing interpretation boards with details about the site’s military history but adds “it is not possible to require assets to be retained”.

The lack of guarantees has heightened Ripon Military Heritage Trust‘s concerns that key military sites will be bulldozed.

The trust said in a statement it was only informed of the recommendation six days before the meeting, even though it had been talking to North Yorkshire Council and Homes England about the military concerns for 15 months.

The statement said:

“It is clear to us that not a single one of our concerns has been addressed. We are extremely disappointed that there seems so little regard for these heritage assets, their significance and their long-term preservation.”

The meeting is due to be broadcast on the council’s YouTube channel here at 10am.

The Stray Ferret is backing Ripon Military Heritage Trust’s campaign to save key military heritage sites at Clotherholme, as reported here. Please join the campaign and sign the petition here. If it gets 500 signatures it will be debated by North Yorkshire Council’s Skipton and Ripon planning committee.

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Green light set to be given tomorrow to 1,300 homes in Ripon

Councillors have been urged to approve plans for 1,300 homes in Ripon when they meet tomorrow (May 14).

The homes, off Clotherholme Road, would have a significant impact on the city, sweeping away key sites of military history and leading to significant changes to roads and junctions.

The plans include a new primary school, sports pitches, a country park and a neighbourhood centre.

Four city centre junctions will be improved and Clotherholme Road, Kirkby Road, College Road and Trinity Lane will be redesigned to prioritise pedestrian safety and encourage cycling.

It would increase Ripon’s population by about 3,000 people, which is greater than the combined size of Masham and Pateley Bridge.

Ripon Military Heritage Trust said in a statement it was “extremely disappointed” and fears rare 1939 military huts and training bridges that played a key role in 20th century warfare will be destroyed. We will publish more on this in a separate article shortly. The Stray Ferret is backing the trust’s campaign to save Ripon’s military history — you can sign the petition here.

A report by case officer Kate Broadbank at North Yorkshire Council recommends councillors on the strategic planning committee grant outline approval, subject to the final details being agreed. The 14 councillors on the committee will decide whether to accept the recommendation.

Ms Broadbank’s report concludes:

“The proposal would contribute towards ensuring the district’s housing needs are met, including the requisite provision of affordable homes, self-build homes, as well as employment land and significant green infrastructure not previously available to the public.

“Overall, for the reasons set out in the report, it is considered the proposal is compliant with the overarching policies of the development plan and national planning policy requirements and thus, represents sustainable development.”

Where the homes would be built. Pic: Homes England

Harrogate Borough Council backed the scheme in February last year, shortly before it was abolished.

The report said it had come back to North Yorkshire Council’s strategic planning committee, which determines major planning applications, because of new information and ongoing discussions around the section 106 payments that developers are required to pay to councils to compensate for the impact of their schemes on local infrastructure.

The section 106 payments include:

If councillors approve the scheme, the principle of development will be established; the details will be ironed out in a subsequent reserved matters planning application.

Government agency Homes England, which is proposing the scheme, will appoint a housebuilder once the scheme is ratified.

Ripon Barracks in north-west of Ripon remains an active Ministry of Defence site but is due to be decommissioned over the next few years.

The 85-hectare development site is accessed via Clotherholme Road to the south and Kirkby Road to the north.

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How Ripon played a key role in two world wars

Michael Furse, a trustee of the charity  Ripon Military Heritage Trust, explains why Ripon and Harrogate have such military significance — and why the trust is fighting to preserve it as part of the the 1,300-home Clotherholme development.

The Stray Ferret is backing the trust’s campaign to save key parts of the city’s military history, as reported here. Please sign the petition here. If it gets 500 signatures it will be debated by North Yorkshire Council’s Skipton and Ripon planning committee.

World War I: 350,000 soldiers pass through Ripon army camp

The British Expeditionary Force marched to war in 1914. The modest force of six divisions acquitted itself well but by the end of 1914 was exhausted having fought at Mons, Le Cateau, the Aisne and Ypres.

However, they helped the French hold off the German army and in what is known as the Race to The Sea prevented the Germans from turning the left flank of the allied armies.

Numbers were made up initially from the territorial force, but Field Marshal Lord Kitchener realised more troops would be needed and set about this with vigour, raising six more divisions by the end of August 1914, and a further 17 divisions by March 1915.

Dubbed Kitchener’s New Army or unkindly, Kitchener’s Mob, these further divisions were formed of volunteer soldiers and the need to process the huge number of them and to train them quickly led to the creation of large army camps, of which Ripon was one. An estimated 350,000 men passed through the camp during the 1914-18 war.

A recruitment poster

What was needed for one of Kitchener’s large camps? Clearly, good rail communications were essential – most soldiers coming to Ripon for training or leaving for the front marched to and from Ripon station, at that time on the main LNER route from King’s Cross to Edinburgh.

The camps needed to be relatively close to the conurbations that provided the volunteers for military service, but to have sufficient space to house up to 30,000 men at a time and to allow civilian soldiers to be trained properly for service on the Western Front, which included training in trenches built for the purpose.

Ripon’s north and south camps trained complete divisions of 16,000 men at a time. Little remains of this enormous undertaking – the camp was demolished and the land returned to the landowners who had offered it for the duration of the war.

Some hospital accommodation blocks remain in Lark Lane, converted into houses, but as they are on large plots, the number dwindles yearly. A set of cavalry lines remained until recently but were torn down to make way for a small housing development, reflecting the complete lack of interest shown by local government in heritage in general and military heritage in particular.

A 1945 aerial photo of Ripon Camp – note the Bailey suspension bridge in what is now the Doublegates housing estate.

World War II: Ripon pioneers bomb disposal and bridges 

The same reasons for selecting this part of England for training from 1914 to 1918 held true in 1940. Good communications, not just with mainline LNER service to London Kings Cross via Leeds, but the development of road freight meant that the A1 had become an important complement to the railways.

Harrogate

At the outbreak of war in September 1939, several government departments were moved from London to areas of greater safety. Harrogate was one of those safe areas and attracted a number of government bodies, primarily the Air Ministry’s Departments of Planning, Production, and Research.

With about 3,000 staff they were described In 1939 as being ‘a very vulnerable basket of precious eggs’. During 1940 there was a pressing need to increase the number of aircraft for the RAF. Working with the Ministry of Aircraft Production, the ‘Harrogate Programme’ arranged for and set a production quota of 3,000 fighters per year. The programme was so successful that over 4,200 fighters were produced in 1940.

In all, some 25 hotels and a number of schools were requisitioned and a group of ‘temporary office buildings’ designed by Sir James West, chief architect for the Ministry of Works, were erected to house the influx of civil servants and military personnel. These included staff of the General Post Office, who managed the post and were also responsible for civil telephony, the Office of Works, the RAF as well as servicewomen from the WRNS, WAAF and ATS.

Ripon

As war with Nazi Germany approached there was a need for accommodation for a much-expanded army. A large number of militia camps were built in the summer of 1939, including one at Ripon, with two barracks intended to each house a battalion-sized unit. One of these was intended to train Sappers.

Some of Ripon’s Second World War huts. Pic: Ripon Military Heritage Trust

The bombing of London and its surroundings in the blitz of 1940 led the Corps of Royal Engineers to move the School of Military Engineering from Chatham to Ripon, a process that started in late 1940 and was completed in early 1941.

The school occupied Deverell Barracks, which is now the only militia camp barracks left and which Homes England, the government’s property developer, is intending to demolish in its entirety, despite advice from both Historic England and the Twentieth Century Society that some of its rare or unique buildings should be preserved.

During the period the school was in Ripon (from late 1940 to early 1949), much critical work related to military engineering took place. Bomb disposal training was based in Ripon, and important development work on mine and obstacle clearance by armoured units was taking place as early as 1942.

Bailey bridge training and testing took place in and around Ripon, and many of the allied engineers who erected Bailey bridges in Italy or North West Europe were trained there. The River Ure was used to train Sherman tank drivers how to exit tank landing craft, an essential skill to master for D-Day. And the load and wind testing for the Bailey suspension bridges that were so essential in the India and Burma campaigns took place on what is now Doublegates housing estate.

Instead of destroying all these historic buildings we want to preserve a small group of them and re-purpose them for community uses and as a permanent interpretation centre where Ripon’s military history can be told. If we are to succeed, we need your support and help. Without this, a key and tangible part of Yorkshire’s military history will be lost forever.

Please support the campaign for a small part of the 1,300-home Clotherholme scheme to be set aside to preserve Ripon’s military history.  You can sign the petition here and find out more about the campaign here.

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Stray Ferret backs campaign to save Ripon’s military heritage

The Stray Ferret is today backing a campaign by Ripon Military Heritage Trust to save key parts of the city’s military history.

Government agency Homes England has planning permission to build 1,300 homes on army barracks at Clotherholme.

But there are fears it will bulldoze sites of international significance, including huts built by Neville Chamberlain’s government in 1939 and training bridges that shaped international warfare, to make way for the housing.

The trust accepts the homes will be built but is campaigning to preserve a number of surviving structures on a site at Laver Banks.

It wants to repurpose huts that would otherwise be demolished not just for heritage reasons but also so they can be used for employment and community use.

They would then feature in a newly created military heritage centre and a military heritage trail that would tell the story of Ripon’s part in international warfare.

We have launched a petition urging people to back the campaign to save Ripon’s military heritage.

If 500 people sign then North Yorkshire Council’s Skipton and Ripon area constituency committee will be obliged to debate it, which will present an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue.

You can sign here.

The trust has adopted the campaign slogan ‘heritage worth fighting for’.

Trustee Michael Furse said:

“The wooden militia camp is unique because it is the last one standing.

“We are not proposing to stop the development. What we are saying is we would like to preserve some of the most important structures from it on a different site.

“We would then like to display those structures in a way that shows them off in a cohesive manner.”

The campaign will run up to the 80th anniversary celebrations of D-Day when Winston Churchill’s great grandson will be in Ripon for the city’s commemorations.

John Plummer, editor of the Stray Ferret, said:

“We fully support this campaign. Ripon’s military heritage should be treasured — not destroyed.”

In the weeks ahead we will provide updates on the campaign and, with the help of the trust, tell the remarkable story of Ripon’s vital role in defending Britain over the years.

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New Clotherholme plans heighten fears for Ripon’s military heritage

The organisation fighting to save Ripon’s military heritage from being bulldozed has said it is “hugely disappointed” about updated plans for the 1,300-home Clotherholme housing scheme.

Government agencies Homes England and the Defence infrastructure Organisation provided the update in a planning report published on North Yorkshire Council’s website last week.

The homes will be built at the barracks site which contains internationally significant military structures, including huts constructed in 1939 when Neville Chamberlain’s government prepared for war with Germany and training bridges that influenced global warfare.

The demolition training bridge. Pic: Ripon Military Heritage Trust

The report pledged to “work with the Ripon Military Heritage Trust on a heritage strategy which will balance the urgent need for new homes for local people with a strategy for preserving and recording the unique history and heritage of the barracks”.

But the trust, which has launched a website as part of a campaign to preserve key aspects of the site, fears the agencies have shown little desire to co-operate since Harrogate Borough Council granted planning permission in February last year and their pledges remain vague and opaque.

Trust chairman Guy Wilson said:

“We are hugely disappointed that after 15 months of engagement with Homes England, the current outline planning application lacks any provision for the preservation of even a single example of the rare and unique huts at Deverell Barracks.

“Neither has any land been allocated to allow for the relocation and re-use of these heritage assets. Both were specific requests that the Harrogate Borough Council planning committee called for in February 2023.

“It has sadly become apparent that none of the parties to this development has any real interest in preserving the heritage of the site and none has made any attempt to work constructively with us. All they are interested in is appearing to do enough to get their present plans passed without alteration, in which case the result will be that significant heritage assets will be lost and this we very much regret.”

The planning update said the housing scheme will preserve the main military roads and names as well as provide information signs.

How the site will look. Pic: Homes England

It also talks about “exploring ways to integrate a walking tour, virtual tour or to develop other forms of public exhibition at the site”.

One of the conditions of planning consent was to allocate £100,000 to the trust to conduct a feasibility study on preserving and retaining some of the existing military buildings on the site. But progress since then has been limited.

Mr Wilson said:

“Unfortunately, we are sceptical about their commitment to developing a feasibility study, as after 15 months of engagement with Homes England there has been no proper engagement with the real issues involved in preserving the heritage.

“During that period work has begun on producing an options appraisal; all the proposals put forward by the trust have been ignored and they have refused to allow the process to be based on a clear understanding of the assets’ heritage significance.”

He added:

“Where is the commitment to assess significance? Where is the list of assets to be preserved? Where is the agreement to transfer ownership of assets required? Where is the commitment to allocate the necessary land to relocate assets? Where is the commitment to build into the development timescale the reality of fund-raising?

“Instead of work on these crucial issues we have been stonewalled at every turn by all parties. Their heritage strategy is aimed at ticking boxes and getting approvals not at preserving the heritage.”

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Editor’s Pick of the Week: Tim Stedman returns, a new mayor awaits and Ripon prepares for 1,300 homes

No corner of the Harrogate district has been immune to new housing in recent years but the sheer scale of the 1,300-home Clotherholme development will alter Ripon forever.

Planning approval was passed by a whisker last year. Since then, the government agencies behind the scheme have said little so this week’s planning update contained some key insights.

There are now just five days until North Yorkshire elects its first mayor. Confused? Read senior reporter Calvin Robinson’s article about the main manifesto differences and look for a recap this weekend of his interviews with all six candidates. We will provide live coverage at the count in Harrogate on Friday.

There are 241 days to Christmas, but Harrogate received one of the best possible festive presents this week with the news that Tim Stedman will return to the town for his 24th panto season. Tim is so loved he would have probably been elected mayor if he’d stood — or at least livened up the sometimes tedious hustings.

Contrary to appearance, Tim is well into his 50s and the slapstick tomfoolery of a lengthy panto, often twice a day, must be exhausting. We should treasure him while we can.

Sadly his long-term double act partner Howard Chadwick won’t be back for what is always a seasonal joy, whatever your age.

Pateley Bridge Cemetery. Picture: Bill Boaden.

Pateley Bridge Cemetery. Picture: Bill Boaden.

Finally, there can be few better places to rest for eternity than Pateley Bridge Cemetery. Look at that view. So plans to create hundreds of new plots this week will be welcomed by Nidderdale folk. The plans even cater for new natural burial sites.

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