Books that support the mental health of teenagers have been put in libraries across the Harrogate district.
The North Yorkshire’s library service initiative coincides with today’s World Mental Health Day.
The pandemic’s disruption to young people’s lives, alongside issues such as growing concern about global warming, has increased uncertainty about identity, position in society and future plans.
In 2020, almost half of young people said they did not feel in control of their lives and almost a third felt overwhelmed by feelings of panic and anxiety on a daily basis, according to North Yorkshire County Council.
The new books, which are recommended by health professionals as part of the Reading Well initiative, cover topics such as body image, bereavement, social anxiety, boosting confidence, surviving online, sexuality, gender identity and mental health.
They cater for a wide range of reading levels and formats to support less confident readers and encourage engagement.
North Yorkshire County Council’s executive member for libraries, Cllr Greg White, said:
“Our libraries have embraced the Reading Well scheme for some years, already focusing on mental health, dementia and issues facing young people.
“This latest collection adds another strand to the support that young people can find at their library, again showcasing their important role in maintaining the health and wellbeing of the communities they serve.”
Every library in North Yorkshire, including Harrogate, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge and Ripon, will be displaying titles from the new collection and any title which is unavailable can be requested and borrowed free of charge.
The Reading Well collection is curated by The Reading Agency in partnership with experts from organisations and professionals including NHS England, leading mental health charities and library staff.
More information about the Reading Well collection can be found here.
Your chance to get involved with £2.5m Skell Valley projectPeople are being given the chance to get involved in a £2.5 million project to create a sustainable future for the Skell Valley.
The project focuses on improving a 12-mile stretch of the river from Dallowgill Moor to Ripon and includes the World Heritage Site of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal.
High levels of silt deposits threaten the ecology and poor water quality has led to a decline in nature.
The project is being co-led by the National Trust and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
To mark the start of the project, a free celebratory event will take place between 1pm and 4pm on Saturday, September 11, at Ripon’s Hell Wath Nature Reserve.
Activities taking place will include stream dipping and guided nature walks, natural wool dyeing sessions and a display of historical archives.
Refreshments and ice cream will be available.
Children attending should be accompanied and supervised by an adult.
The event is designed to highlight the role that the community, alongside farmers and landowners, can play in the four-year Skell scheme.
Project manager Nabil Abbas said:
“The project is all about working with the local community to improve this rich and beautiful landscape’s resilience to climate change, boost the local economy and increase people’s access to green space following the coronavirus pandemic.
“I hope everyone will join us on September 11 as we celebrate the start of this innovative project.”
Project partners and local community groups will be on hand to lead activities, talk about their organisations and answer questions.
There will also be opportunities for people of all backgrounds, abilities, and interests to get involved. Volunteer roles are currently being recruited in nature conservation and archive research.
Details of the project.
Mr Abbas said:
“Volunteering offers fantastic opportunities for those wanting to develop practical conservation skills, learn about wildlife management or who might even want to follow a career in habitat conservation. It’s also a great way to meet like-minded people, help safeguard our beautiful landscape, and try something new.”
For those interested in the history of the Skell Valley, volunteers are needed for the Digging Deep in the Archives project being run by the West Yorkshire Archives Service.
No prior booking is required for people planning to attend the event.
City council continues to press for better Ripon bus service
City councillors will renew efforts this autumn to secure a bus service designed for Ripon’s residential roads and streets.
The city is well-served by Transdev’s 36 service, which provides regular buses to and from Leeds, via Harrogate and last month an uber-style service linking Ripon, Bedale and Masham, was launched as a pilot.
However, in-city bus services in Ripon have been patchy for many years.
Council leader Andrew Williams, told the Stray Ferret:
“With the Section 106 monies from the Bishops Glade residential development and St Michael’s Retail Park, North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) as the integrated transport authority, has the financial means to fund a properly joined up city-wide bus service for Ripon.
“In addition to the contributions that developers are required to make towards the provision of bus services, the city council has funds ready to put into the pot.”
Cllr Williams pointed out:
“With a growing population, bringing increased traffic and more pressure on Ripon’s road network, it makes sense to encourage greater use of public transport for visiting the city centre, getting to work, school and for other travel needs.”
Section 106 monies from the developer of the Bishops Glade scheme could be used to improve city-wide bus services in Ripon
Harron Homes, which is building 145 dwellings at the Bishops Glade development in the Doublegates area of Ripon, is making payments totalling £500,000 over three years, towards the cost of providing a regular Monday to Saturday bus service between the development and the city centre.
At Rotary Way, where the St Michael’s Retail Park is home to a Marks & Spencer Food store, developer Commercial Projects Ltd, is required to make a Section 106 payment of £475,000 towards the cost of a local bus service.
This is designed to provide a public transport means for customers to visit the edge-of-city scheme, where Lidl also has plans to open a supermarket.
Elected members have been seeking improved public transport provision for some time and Cllr Peter Horton, who chairs the city council transport group, said earlier this year:
“We will liaise with North Yorkshire County Council to discuss how the sources of funding can be drawn together.
“As a growing city, it makes sense to have a robust and regular bus service that reduces the need for cars to come into the centre, where parking is at a premium, while also providing a means for non-drivers to come into town.
“There are environmental benefits as well, as fewer car journeys into Ripon city centre will reduce the emissions that cause global warming.”
Discussions with NYCC have been delayed by the covid lockdowns, but the city council will seek meetings at county hall in the autumn, in the hope that the tendering process for a new, comprehensive inner Ripon service, can be held at the earliest opportunity.
Ripon student wins award for environmentally-friendly rail app
A Ripon Grammar School student has won an award for designing an app aimed at helping commuters reduce their carbon footprint.
David Fernandes, a 12-year-old Ripon Grammar School student, was awarded a Faraday Challenge prize for his idea, which also intends to help Network Rail minimise its impact on the environment.
The app shows commuters the total carbon produced for each journey, as well as monthly projections.
David said:
“This was a great opportunity to research and better understand how science can help us solve some of the biggest challenges we face.”
David, a boarder at Ripon Grammar School, is planning a career in medicine ,
David’s ZeroCO2 Train smart app uses three steps – travel, calculate and offset.
It automatically calculates a consumer’s train travel data and provides them with options to offset their carbon emission.
His presentation was made in the 11-15 years category in the Virtual Faraday Challenge. This encourages the development of young people’s problem-solving and communications skills.
David’s idea impressed expert judges at the Institution of Engineering and Technology.
The panel said:
“The idea of the app is so good and so well-researched it deserves to win a prize.”
His app allows commuters to use their e-train ticket (or scan their paper-based ticket) to be automatically validated at the start of each journey.
The app will show the customer the total carbon produced for each journey, also cumulative monthly journeys and annual projections based on their travel profile.
Travellers can then offset their carbon footprint by supporting a range of UK-based carbon offset projects, ranging from solar power to tree plantations that the app would recommend.
Entrants were asked to produce a design and demonstrate the engineering skills required to think of a solution.
This year’s task was: Helping Network Rail to sustainably manage the increasing numbers of passengers using their network.
David added:
“Like many of my friends, I am keen to do my bit to help the environment.
“While aware that train travel is the most environmentally-friendly way of travelling, I am concerned that having the technology to operate zero carbon trains is still decades away.”
David, who is planning a career in medicine, is keen to use technology that could have a direct impact on train travel.
He wants to play a part in helping the challenge of holding global temperature rise to no more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Strayside Sunday: Global brand presents global dilemmaStrayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.
“Thousands have lived without love. None without water.”
So said the great poet and York’s own W.H. Auden in his poem ‘First Things First.’
Water is elemental, an essential building block for life on earth. The human body comprises up to 60% water and global water security is, in my view, one of the most under-reported threats faced by contemporary civilisation. The World Health Organisation reports that 1 in 3 humans in the world today have no access to an improved water supply, which is to say they have no access to clean and drinkable water. And at current rates of global climate change the United Nations predicts that 6 billion of us will face water scarcity by 2050.
All of this to inject some context and perspective into the debate raging in this parish between Harrogate Spring Water, the council and a coalition of locals and environmental campaigners over the future of Rotary Wood, a publicly accessible green oasis planted in 2005 by Harrogate residents. French consumer goods and yogurt giant Danone (revenues €25 billion or thereabouts) has asked Harrogate Borough Council (revenues a great deal less) to consider an application to expand its Pinewoods spring water bottling plant, create a few new jobs and level some much cherished woodland.
On January 18th Harrogate Borough Council published a report recommending conditional approval for Danone’s expansion plans; on the grounds that Harrogate Spring Water is a ‘global brand’ and a ‘strategic employer.’ This in the face of 328 planning objections (only 28 in support) and a weekly Friday protest at the town hall by local primary school teacher Sarah Gibbs, dressed like a tree for the occasion. It should be noted that not only do the council already benefit from an annual ground rent of £13,000 – they also own the land on which the bottling plant sits – and therefore benefit from what is known as a ‘turnover rent’ (a share of turnover), cannily negotiated when the plant first opened.
I have some sympathy with the council’s dilemma. Harrogate Spring Water is globally known; the company promote our town’s name from Tokyo to Toronto. Indeed, to his astonishment, a good friend of mine was once served Harrogate Spring Water at a restaurant in Moscow. Spasiba! The council is in a tough spot; the global (let alone local) economy is on its knees and their books are short close to £5m as a result of Covid-19. Apparently the council won’t (or can’t) reveal the full extent of what we stand to gain from our share of any increased turnover resulting from the expansion.
As regular readers of this column will know, I don’t believe, as a matter of principle, that commercial dealings between government and business should be kept private in any circumstances. Transparency means accountability. In this case if we knew how much the council stood to gain financially from Harrogate Spring Water’s expansion then we could take a more informed and nuanced view of whether or not to lend our support. As it stands all we know is that we must lose a significant slice of nature and public access to it for a meagre 12 new jobs. I’m not convinced it’s worth the sacrifice, even with Danone’s Section 106 agreement requiring them to plant replacement trees and promote biodiversity on another site.
I am convinced however that, in a world where so many don’t have access to clean drinking water, it is the height of wasteful and selfish consumerism to drink bottled spring water when we in the developed world have a perfectly good alternative from the tap. I’m convinced too that the production of even one more single-use plastic bottle, recyclable or not, is one too many. Is my own conscience clean in this matter? Of course not: Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now etc. Indeed, only if all those who oppose the expansion at Pinewoods so vehemently, can look one another in the eye and say in truth that they don’t drink bottled water from plastic bottles, are they entitled to vent anger. As Auden says in ‘First Things First’:
“Misinformed and thoroughly fleeced by their guides,
And gentle hearts are extinct like Hegelian Bishops.”
I can’t let the week pass without mentioning the inauguration of President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, which I watched with a mixture of relief and wonder on Wednesday. I found the ceremony deeply moving; for me it represented a return to the United States in which I spent 11 of my most formative years – idealistic, international, aspirational. Neither Lincoln nor JFK in his rhetorical skills, Biden’s speech was nonetheless gripping. I thought its best passage was “Through civil war, the Great Depression, world war, 9/11, through struggle, sacrifices and setbacks, our better angels have always prevailed. In each of these moments, enough of us — ENOUGH OF US — have come together to carry all of us forward, and we can do that now,”
On his first day in office Biden signed Executive Orders that returned the US to the Paris Climate Change Agreement (in time for the COP21 conference in Glasgow at the end of November) and to the World Health Organisation. Thank goodness. Globally, in the United States and here at home in Harrogate, if we are to slow and reverse global warming and its awful effects – melting ice caps, famine and, yes, drought – it will take enough of us to come together and act for the common good. The number of people on the planet without access to safe drinking water or indeed any water at all grows every day. For the people of Harrogate, water, tap or bottled spring, is not a matter of life and death. For 2.2 billion people around the world it is. We should remember that when we make decisions in the narrow and parochial economic interest, rather than in the global interests of the environment.
That’s my Strayside Sunday.
Do you have a view on this column or is there a political issue you’d like Paul to write about? Get in touch on paul@thestrayferret.co.uk
New Ripon developments could fund better bus serviceNew housing and commercial developments in Ripon could fund a better local bus service.
Ripon City Council’s transport group has been trying for several years to create a more integrated bus timetable for all parts of the city.
The current RS1 Ripon city service provided by North Yorkshire County Council operates to restricted hours during the week and doesn’t run at all on weekends.
But it is hoped that section 106 funds, which developers have to pay to fund infrastructure projects, could be used to improve matters.
Councillor Peter Horton, who chairs the transport group, told the Stray Ferret:
“We are well served by Transdev’s regular 36 double decker buses that provide journeys to and from Harrogate and onward to Leeds but our inner-city service is patchy.
“When commercial operators were no longer able to provide an internal Ripon service, we were grateful that North Yorkshire County Council stepped in to help but their mini-bus covers only around half of the city and we are looking for a more joined-up service.”
Councillor Peter Horton, who says section 106 funds from Ripon developments can help pay for a new bus service.
Some money to improve the service has been allocated from the parish precept.
Section 106 planning money from the retail development at Rotary Way, where a Marks & Spencer opened last year, is another possible source.
Longer-term, there are plans to build 1,300 homes at the Clotherholme development on the site of the former army barracks, which is another possible source of section 106 income.
Councillor Horton said:
“We will liaise with North Yorkshire County Council as the integrated passenger transport authority to discuss how the sources of funding can be drawn together.
“As a growing city, it makes sense to have a robust and regular bus service that reduces the need for cars to come into the centre, where parking is at a premium, while also providing a means for non-drivers to come into town.
“There are environmental benefits as well, as fewer car journeys into Ripon city centre will reduce the emissions that cause global warming.”
£2.5 million project to prevent flooding at Fountains Abbey
A £2.5 million scheme to revive the river valley that runs through Fountains Abbey has been given the green light today.
The abbey and its water garden near Ripon are a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the UK’s most significant cultural landmarks.
But flooding has deluged the abbey ruins and the adjacent water garden several times in recent years. Nearby homes and businesses have also been affected.
Wildlife is under threat from poor water quality because of increased sediment in the river.
Now the National Lottery Heritage Fund has awarded a £1.4 million grant to tackle the problem.
The sum, combined with funding from other sources, will enable the valley to be protected from the effects of climate change and flooding, which has threatened to cause irreparable damage to the abbey.
The Skell valley scheme aims to rejuvenate 12 miles of the River Skell by improving the landscape’s resilience to climate change.
Work on the scheme, led by the National Trust and Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is due to begin in March.
The River Skell, which runs through the Fountains Abbey UNESCO World Heritage site
In 2007, flooding devastated archaeology at Fountains Abbey, inundated the water garden of Studley Royal and caused damage downstream in Ripon.
Despite efforts to tackle the effects of extreme weather, flooding and silt-build up continue to threaten the valley’s heritage and ecology.
But now, with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other funders, including the European Regional Development Fund, large-scale work to protect the landscape can begin.
The four-year scheme, which has been under development for several years, will involve local partners, landowners, farmers and volunteer groups.
Efforts to reduce flooding will include tree planting, meadow creation and new ponds, which will reduce soil run-off and slow the flow of water.
The project is designed to boost wildlife in the valley and it is hoped that populations of rare species such as curlew, white-clawed crayfish and golden plover will increase.
Communities will take an active role in the scheme with opportunities to learn conservation skills and undertake archive research.
Councillor Nigel Simms, who represents Masham and Kirkby Malzeard on Harrogate Borough Council and is chair of the Nidderdale AONB joint advisory committee, said:
“We will work closely with local farmers and landowners across the Skell valley to put in place nature-based solutions that will reduce flooding and improve biodiversity in and around the river.”