A planning application has been submitted to convert Harrogate’s former Royal Air Force club on East Parade into four flats.

The club occupied the building between 1966 and 2022 and served to support ex-RAF servicemen and servicewomen throughout the Harrogate district.

The bar was open on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.

The club’s members were part of the RAF Association, a registered charity that provides welfare support to the family of RAF members nationally.

But the club closed after over 50 years in June 2022 due to a dwindling membership locally.

Planning documents submitted to Harrogate Borough Council also say there was also no disabled access to the building, which made it difficult for ageing members to access.

A statement from the club chairman last summer said the club was no longer viable and when sold, the proceeds would be given to the RAF Association.

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A closing party was held at the club where people made donations to obtain some of its remaining military memorabilia.

Despite closing the club, the Harrogate district branch of RAFA is continuing with its charitable endeavours and remaining members will still attend annual events such as the Battle of Britain commemorative parade at Stonefall Cemetery and Remembrance Sunday parades.

Philip Crebbin, chairman of the club, outside the RAF club in Harrogate.

The National Reserve Club, also called The Nash, was a nearby club that formed in 1913 but closed in 2020. Planning documents say that declining membership numbers and maintenance costs mean working men’s clubs are struggling to survive.

However, the Ex-Servicemens Social Club, also on East Parade, is still open.

The plans for the RAFA Club include four two-bedroom flats and the demolition of an external toilet block.

Planning documents state:

“The falling membership of private members clubs such as The Nash and the RAFA Club, have rendered them unviable and works on the maintenance of those properties has declined.

“It is generally recognised that limited membership clubs nationally are in the decline and property maintenance is low down their priorities while trying to survive. The closure of these two nearby premises with no acceptable alternative use or substantial investment will result in the decline of the fabric of the buildings being accelerated to the detriment of the character of the conservation area.”

Plans have been put forward to convert part of a town centre estate agent’s office in Harrogate into a two-bedroom flat.

The premises on Albert Street is occupied by North Residential, previously Knight Frank, but under the proposals part of the first floor and all of the second floor would be changed to residential use.

The prior notification documents submitted to change the use of the premises state that other than a meeting room to the rear, the upper floors have been out of use for some time.

The application states:

“The upper floors of the premises were ceased to be part of the commercial use following the refurbishment of the building at the rear 18 months ago.

“The ground floor floorspace was considered more convenient and offered a high quality meeting room. Since that time, the first and second floors have remained vacant in excess of the three month requirement.”

Access to the upper floors is through the estate agency office on the ground floor. However, the proposals state that a separate application will be made to alter the access and provide a self-contained staircase to the flat.

The plans show it would have a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom on the first floor, with a second bedroom on the top floor.

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Supporting information submitted with the plans states:

“The proposed scheme looks to preserve and enhance the character of the conservation area through conversion of its first and loft floor, improving the amenity of the building and bringing the upper floors of the building back into use.”

North Residential began trading last month after a management buy-out of the Harrogate branch of Knight Frank, having been operating it in Harrogate for 15 years.

The business will continue in the ground floor of the Albert Street building, along with a first-floor meeting room to the rear.

To view or comment on the application, visit the planning section of Harrogate Borough Council’s website and use reference 22/03448/PCBSR.

A Portuguese dominatrix and her English husband have been found guilty of running a sex-trafficking and prostitution racket in Harrogate after “flying in” women from Europe and South America.

Fabiana De Souza, 41, and Gareth Derby, 53, from Norfolk, flew sex workers in from Brazil and Portugal, paid for their flights and met them at airports, before whisking them off to flats where men paid women for “massages” and “full (sex) services”, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley QC said De Souza rented a two-bed flat in Harrogate town centre through a letting agency “so it could be used for sex…which would be advertised on the internet by these two defendants”. Mr Lumley added:

“It was run as a business by these two, controlled invariably from their home in Norfolk and the pair of them were in it together.

“The provision of sexual services provided by them was not confined to Harrogate (which) was an extension of an existing business.

“There was another flat in Norfolk put to similar use and when that became unavailable, even the home of these defendants was converted for use by sex workers. The labour force came from overseas, from countries such as Brazil, and they got here by air and their travel in and out of the country was invariably organised and paid for by these two defendants.

“As soon as the (sex workers) arrived here, they would be installed in the flat in Harrogate or elsewhere, always with the purpose of being available for sex.”

The couple, of Town Street in the village of Upwell, Norfolk, each denied one count of people-trafficking and another of controlling prostitution for financial gain. The charges related to six named women who worked at the Harrogate sex den between April and the end of August 2017.

They were found guilty on both counts on Monday following a 10-day trial.

Bower Road flat

Mr Lumley said that at least one other woman was prostituted in other parts of the country, including King’s Lynn in Norfolk and Birmingham, but they were not part of the charges.

De Souza and Derby would pay for sex adverts within hours of picking the women up from the airport and “setting them up” at the flat on Bower Road. The adverts were placed on the classified escorts websites Viva Street and Adult Work and included raunchy descriptions of the women.

They took the bookings and “made the arrangements (with the clients)” who would pay various amounts – from £80 for half an hour to over £1,000 for an overnight stay. Mr Lumley said:

“The defendants would receive their cut.”

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The money, described as “significant cash deposits”, usually ended up in De Souza’s Halifax bank account, but on occasions “cash simply changed hands, handed by the sex workers to one of these two”.

Mr Lumley said one woman was flown in from Amsterdam and was picked up by the couple who had driven from Norfolk in a 4×4 pick-up. Derby also drove a Mercedes.

Police were tracking the couple’s movements, including their journeys between Harrogate and Norfolk using number-plate recognition cameras.

An undercover officer searched the escort sites and called the phone number provided on the women’s sex profiles, pretending to be a client. The call went through to De Souza’s mobile phone in King’s Lynn.

She answered in “broken English”, claiming to be ‘Lisa’, and an “appointment” was made for the Harrogate flat.

Mr Lumley said the couple “often met the flights at the airport or arranged for a train ticket to be available at the airport as they moved these women around the country or put them on a bus and sent them up to Harrogate or somewhere else”.

Harrogate flat rented for £700 a month

Following her arrest, De Souza told police she had left her husband in September 2017 with the intention of divorcing him and moved to Harrogate “where no-one knew me”.

She said she rented the Bower Road flat for over £700 a month and let rooms out to “others”, some of whom were “friends from Portugal”.

She said it was “none of my business what (the women) were doing, as long as they paid (their) rent”.

She claimed that in May 2018, she reconciled with her husband and moved back to Norfolk, to a property in Walpole St Andrew.

Derby said he only had an “inkling that Fabia worked at the Harrogate flat as a dominatrix”.

Mr Lumley said that photos of the women – which were often false and whose profiles made out they were much younger than their true ages – were posted with the ads.

The women arrived at various airports including Manchester, Gatwick and Stansted. Mr Lumley said:

“They are flown in, spend two or three weeks in the country and then flown out again.”

In a text sent to an associate in January 2018, Derby boasted of being a “smuggler of women”.

One advert showed a “Latina” woman who said her services included “tantric massage, role play and fantasy”.

The undercover officer made an “appointment” and went to the Harrogate flat as a ‘client’, dressed in civilian clothes and with female back-up officers waiting outside.

Once inside the flat, he showed the woman his warrant card. She showed him a Brazilian ID card, but her responses were “not entirely honest”.

£40,000 in five months

Police trawled through the bank accounts of De Souza and her husband and found they had spent “thousands on air fares” and over £2,000 on Viva Street adverts alone. Mr Lumley said:

“Who knows how much cash simply changed hands?”

He added that £40,000 appeared in the couple’s bank accounts during the five-month prostitution racket in Harrogate alone.

The undercover cop said that on his first visit to the building on Bower Road, the sex worker named ‘Lisa’ buzzed him into the flats which were above shops. He was met by a woman in a “revealing” short-length dressing gown who said she had also worked as a stripper.

He made “numerous” such visits to other women after responding to adverts including one for a “Hot Brazilian, full service”. She was about 57 years’ old but was advertised as 33.

He said there was another woman in her 50s inside the flat who was also a sex worker. She said she was from the “Republic of Portugal” but was born in Brazil. She had been earning about £280 per day.

Michael Fullerton, for De Souza, said there was no dispute that she was working as a dominatrix before and during the prostitution enterprise. She had previously worked as a stripper.

Richard Mohabir, for Derby, said his client was adamant that he “controlled nobody” and “didn’t know sex work or prostitution was going on”.

However, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on both defendants.

Judge Guy Kearle QC adjourned sentence until January 18. He granted both defendants bail until then.