The Great Yorkshire Show looks set to be extended to four days this year, as part of major changes in the wake of covid.

The Stray Ferret understands the show will also see the number of daily visitors restricted to between 20,000 and 25,000 — well below the usual 44,000 average.

It is understood livestock classes will be reduced, just one event hall will be open and all tickets will need to be bought in advance for track and trace purposes.

Facemasks will also have to be worn inside marquees.

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The show is now set to take place at Harrogate’s Great Yorkshire Showground from July 13 to 16, with the addition of a Friday to the usual Tuesday to Thursday schedule.

The event will operate reduced hours from 8am and 5pm each day.

The Yorkshire Agricultural Society, which organises the event, is expected to make an announcement on the changes tomorrow.

Some other major outdoor shows in the district have cancelled due to concerns over social distancing.

Last week, Ripley Show announced it will not go ahead.

Organisers said despite the roadmap out of lockdown and vaccination numbers offering a positive outlook the “proposed conditions are near impossible to comply with on the show ground”.

Masham Steam Engine and Fair Organ Rally, which was due to take place on July 17 and 18, has also been cancelled.

The YAS has previously said it was hopeful the Great Yorkshire Show will go ahead despite other events cancelling.

Harrogate District Hospital has reported its first covid death in 13 days.

According to NHS England figures, the hospital reported the death of a patient who tested positive for coronavirus yesterday.

It is the first reported at the hospital since March 16.

The number takes the hospital covid death toll to 178.

Meanwhile, just two covid cases have been recorded in the Harrogate district today.

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According to latest Public Health England figures, it takes the total number of infection since last March to 7,578.

The district’s seven-day covid rate of infection stands at 34 cases per 100,000 people.

Elsewhere, the North Yorkshire average is 44 and the England rate is 54.

A North Yorkshire county councillor who works as a funeral director has claimed it is “absolute rubbish” to say 130,000 people have died of covid in the UK.

Cllr Andrew Jenkinson said deaths had been wrongly recorded and  blamed “inept” doctors.

The current number of UK deaths within 28 days of a positive covid test is 126,592 and 148,125 people had covid mentioned on the death certificate.

The independent councillor said:

“They say 130,000 people passed away, approximately, of covid. To me that is absolute rubbish and I will tell you why it is rubbish.

“It is because as a funeral director, we have [seen] so many cases that have been put down as covid and they have died of other things.

“So we have actually been very, very good, telling [it] as it is but even more [so[ and I think the rest of Europe have lied.

“I bet their figures are a lot higher. The problem with the UK is that we are so honest.”

Cllr Jenkinson was speaking at a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s Scarborough area committee on Friday where he put his concerns to Robert Goodwill, the Conservative MP for Scarborough and Whitby.

Cllr Jenkinson told Mr Goodwill other European countries had “lied” about their death figures.

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Cllr Jenkinson, who was elected as a Conservative but who now sits as an independent, went on to claim that doctors had been signing death certificates as covid deaths without ever seeing the patients.

He added:

“First and foremost, you do not need two doctors to certificate a death now since covid came in, you only need one.

“This is not to have a go at anybody but the doctors. I think the doctors in the NHS have been brilliant but the actual doctors in your practices have been quite inept in the early stages.

“There still are problems where they will not come and see the death of a person to clarify everything, so they’re going through and [the cause of death] has been put down as covid.”

UK ‘performing better than other countries’

Mr Goodwill said he runs a green burial site and had been told by one family that “it says covid on the death certificate but we don’t think that actually is the case”.

Mr Goodwill said the true measure for deaths would be excess deaths compared to the five-year average and said the UK was performing better than other European countries.

He said:

“We get a lot of criticism in the UK because we are quite a big country.

“In Belgium the death rate has been way ahead of ours all the way through but because it is a small country, those who choose to write newspaper articles or report in the media would not pick on Belgium because although their figures are higher as a percentage they are lower numerically.”

Conservative MP Mr Goodwill, who is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Funerals and Bereavement, added:

“At the beginning of the pandemic, you may recall we were saying that anybody who’d ever had a positive test who died will be down as a covid death.

“So you could have the disease last March and you could be run over by a bus in July and that would have gone down as a Covid death so they took the decision to say deaths within 28 days of a positive test. But that has problems.”

NHS North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group declined to comment on Cllr Jenkinson’s claims.

“Please be considerate of others who are desperately trying to get appointments in the area.”

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Twelve more cases of covid have been confirmed in the Harrogate district, according to Public Health England figures.

It takes the total number of cases since last March to 7,575.

Meanwhile, the seven-day covid rate for the district stands at 48 per 100,000 people.

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The North Yorkshire rate is 46 and the England average stands at 57.

No further deaths from patients who tested positive for covid have been recorded at Harrogate District Hospital.

The last death reported at the hospital was on March 16.

More than half of the Harrogate district’s population has received the first dose of a covid vaccine.

NHS England figures show 82,118 people have been vaccinated in the district so far.

The number represents 51% of the district population, which is 160,533 according to latest Office for National Statistics data.

It comes as more than half of the UK adult population have received a first dose of a vaccine.

Read more:

• Nidderdale minibus helps rural people get vaccines
• Coronavirus vaccine centre to open in Pateley Bridge
• Great Yorkshire Showground can give 1,800 vaccines in a day

Earlier this week, Amanda Bloor, accountable officer at North Yorkshire CCG, said health bosses had been assured by government that there would be enough supply to vaccinate all over-50s by April 15.

A letter from NHS England to hospital bosses across the country warned of a shortage of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine from next month.

Those over-50 and people with underlying health conditions are currently being invited to book a vaccine appointment.

The Great Yorkshire Showground vaccine site has enough capacity to vaccinate 1,800 people per day.

The district also has vaccination centres in Ripon, Knaresborough and Pateley Bridge.

Meanwhile, 14 further cases of covid have been recorded in the Harrogate district.

According to Public Health England figures, it takes the total number of cases since last March to 7,563.

A dog groomer in Ripley says she is struggling to pay the rent after she was denied a £2,000 covid grant at the last minute.

The government says dog grooming services can stay open but pets can only be groomed if it’s absolutely necessary for the animal’s welfare.

This has put businesses like Sirius Dog Grooming Parlour in Ripley in a difficult position. Owner Catherine Cowling says she is technically open but has lost 95% of her customers.

She received an email from Harrogate Borough Council earlier this month saying she was eligible for a £2,000 Local Restrictions Support Grant for businesses that have been forced to close due to covid.

She said the money was even pending in her bank account ready to be paid in.

But then a couple of days later, the government issued fresh guidance to local authorities to say dog groomers were not eligible for this grant, and she never received the money.

Read more:

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Cat said she now hopes to be eligible for a £500 Additional Restrictions Grant but is yet to receive it.

She said the dog grooming industry has been hit hard by mixed messages sent out by the government.

She added:

“Not getting the grant adds insult to injury. I’ve earned absolutely no money since January. It’s just not fair.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said:

“As animal grooming businesses are not mandated to close under the regulations for the most recent national lockdown, they are not eligible to receive grants designed to support closed businesses.

However, subject to the discretion of Local Authorities, they may have been eligible for Additional Restrictions Grant funding, and from April 1, may also be entitled to receive a Restart Grant of up to £6,000.”

A popular shopkeeper who has gone the extra mile to help villagers during covid was flooded with presents on her 60th birthday today.

Lynn Raffle, who has owned Markington Post Office and General Store for seven years, said she was overwhelmed by the show of affection.

She told the Stray Ferret:

“I feel totally blessed. Balloons were hung outside the shop, I’ve received a portrait of my dog who died last year, I’ve been given Prosecco, a bracelet and six bouquets of flowers — it’s amazing.”

Karen Moss, who painted the portrait, said Ms Raffle had been the beating heart of the village, which is between Harrogate and Ripon, over the last 12 months:

“She has organised provisions for people who couldn’t go to the supermarket.

“She organised a group of volunteers to pick up prescriptions and do any other errands, she was there for whatever people needed.

“She’s a real unsung hero who looks out for everyone, she’s just a really lovely lady that needs to be recognised.”

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Another Markington resident, Meg Nelson, said:

“It always cheers me up popping in to get my bits and having a chat and a giggle with Lynn.

“Thank you for doing such an amazing job of providing us all with a shop and getting hold of anything people request during these hard times.”

Ms Raffle was a cook in the village school for 14 years before taking over the post office.

She works seven days a week, rising at 5.30am every weekday and being in the shop an hour later until 6.15pm at night. She joked:

“I get a lie-in until 6.30am on Sundays.”

The shop was built in 1846 as a chapel and has had many purposes since.

Many old features remain, including meat hooks from its time as a butcher’s shop. Ms Raffle said:

“It’s been the best day ever. I can’t remember a day like it since I went on the Orient Express when I was 50.”

Work has begun to dismantle Harrogate’s Nightingale hospital – almost a year after it was built at a cost of more than £27m.

The temporary 500-bed site was set up at Harrogate Convention Centre in April last year to cope with a surge of coronavirus cases but it has not treated a single virus patient during the pandemic.

NHS England announced this month the emergency hospital would close at the start of April and a spokesperson has now confirmed contractors have started removing medical equipment from the venue.

“The phased dismantling of NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber has begun.

“The removal of some larger pieces of equipment will require road closures which will be advertised through the appropriate channels in due course.”

The emergency hospital was one of seven built in England and although it did not treat a single coronavirus patient, it was used for non-virus diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments.

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Earlier this month, the NHS described the network of Nightingale hospitals as the “ultimate insurance policy” as it announced each of the sites, apart from those in London and Sunderland which will stay open for vaccinations, will close next month.

Health officials also said it was a “success” that the Harrogate site was not needed but there are questions over how it would have been staffed, with councillors on the West Yorkshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee this week launching an investigation into why the facility was not used for covid patients.

Councillor Jim Clark, the Conservative chairman of North Yorkshire County Council, said there are “questions to be answered” and “lessons we can learn” around the Nightingale.

He told the health committee on Monday:

“We need to know how we would have staffed it, what capacity it would have been able to provide, where the staff would have come from and what effect that would have had on services within the rest of Yorkshire.”

It remains unclear how long the dismantling of the hospital will take and how much it will cost.

However, Paula Lorimer, director of the council-owned convention centre, previously said she was “confident” it will be ready for events to return on 21 June when all restrictions on social distancing are due to be lifted.

Ten more covid cases have been recorded in the Harrogate district, according to Public Health England figures.

It takes the total number of infections since last March to 7,542.

Meanwhile, the district’s covid seven-day rate remains at 48 infections per 100,000 people.

The North Yorkshire average is 47 and the England rate is 55.

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It was revealed today that the number of covid patients being treated at Harrogate District Hospital has fallen to six.

Last week, there were 13 patients at the hospital.

No covid-related deaths have been reported at Harrogate District Hospital today.