Scale of Harrogate council’s coronavirus deficit unclear

The scale of Harrogate Borough Council’s coronavirus shortfall remains unclear as authority officials say there is “a number of unknowns” in estimating the impact of lockdown.

Paul Foster, the council’s head of finance, told a full council meeting that the council’s deficit could be anywhere between £9 million and £14.5 million.

But, in May, council officers said the shortfall could be as high as £15 million due to a loss of income on leisure, homelessness and car parking.

It comes as the authority revealed a £327,000 overspend last year, with £270,000 of that figure put down to the coronavirus pandemic.

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However, the cost is just the tip of the iceberg in what is expected to be a much larger deficit come the end of the next financial year. Other authority leaders have warned of impending bankruptcy notices at councils across the UK due to mounting deficits.

Some councils may have to look to their reserves to bail them out. Harrogate council had £27 million held over for a rainy day as of April 2019, but it remains unclear how it intends to tackle its estimated shortfall and whether or not it will use its reserves.

Mr Foster told councillors that the authority would not be issuing a section 114 notice – a drastic measure used in times of dire financial circumstances – which would ban any further spending.

He said the shortfall remains unclear at this time because of a number of factors.

“There will be a significant financial detriment due to covid-19, but it is challenging to estimate with certainty as you will appreciate there are still a number of unknowns.

“There are additional costs in responding to the pandemic, for example in the areas of homelessness and waste collection.

“However, more significant will be the irrevocable loss of income in relation to leisure, the convention centre, parking and planning. But also in relation to funding on both council tax and business rates.

“The estimated deficit ranges from £9.3 million to £14.5 million in 2020/21 depending on the assumptions that you make. 

“As I’ve said, there are still a number of unknowns around when certain facilities can open, how long social distancing measures will be in place and how our customers will behave.”

Mr Foster added that the council’s deficit position will be kept under review, along with budget plans and its reserves. The outcome of the reviews are expected to be brought before senior councillors at future cabinet meetings.

A further £500 million package of funding was announced by the government last week to help with spending pressures.

Funding allocations have yet to be revealed, but the scheme is expected to reimburse authorities for lost income and allow council tax and business rates deficits to be paid over three years instead of one.

Councillor’s ‘white lives matter’ comments ‘deplorable’, says council leader

The leader of Harrogate Borough Council has described comments made by a parish councillor for a “white lives matter” protest as deplorable and shocking.

More than two weeks ago, Cllr Ernest Butler, who sits on Darley and Menwith Parish Council, posted comments on his Facebook page suggesting that people moving to the UK were “taking over”.

The borough council received complaints about the remarks, but pointed out that its code of conduct does not extend to social media comments made by councillors.

Cllr Matthew Webber, Liberal Democrat councillor, asked council leader Richard Cooper at a meeting of the authority’s full council last night about the council’s position on the matter.

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Cllr Cooper said:

“First thing to say is Cllr Butler, who I had never heard of before this, his comments are deplorable and just really shocking.

“But there is a legal position here about what the borough council can and cannot do and I will ask the council’s solicitor to forward a copy to you of that legal position which has been supplied to those people in the media.

“You will be able to see for yourself. In fact, after so many years on the council, you should understand the standards procedure and what is and is not possible.

“But I will ask for your benefit for the council’s head of legal and governance services to forward that to you and copy all councillors in as well.

“If I was Darley and Menwith Parish Council, I would have thought twice about co-opting this gentleman in the first place and I would certainly be putting pressure on him to stand down.”

Councillor Richard Cooper (bottom right) told a full council meeting that Cllr Butler’s comments were deplorable.

It comes as Cllr Butler’s comments sparked controversy with anti-racism campaigners who took complaints to his employers.

When The Stray Ferret approached Cllr Ernest Butler he was not apologetic about his comments and said he had not done anything wrong.

He said:

“I am not a racist person. What I said online is true, there are just people out there that disagree with me and want to bring me down. I just stick my head above the parapet and say what other people can’t. It’s not racist to say people from European countries are taking jobs here and driving down the wages.”

Council gives final backing to leisure services overhaul

Harrogate Borough Council’s full council has backed an overhaul of leisure services in the district by handing control of facilities over to a new company.

Councillors voted through the proposal at a meeting last night which will see the authority spend £300,000 on start up costs for the authority-owned company called Brimham’s Active.

Opposition Liberal Democrat councillors tabled an amendment for affordable pricing, accountability and workers rights, which was also backed.

The new company will see 11 facilities in the district handed over to the company, including the Harrogate Hydro and the new Ripon Leisure Centre.

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Council officials have said the decision to hand over the leisure facilities to Brimham’s Active will save £400,000 a year and that the authority will have a majority on its board.

It follows a council consultation which saw nearly half of respondents disagree with the move and residents in Starbeck vowing to fight any future threat to the area’s 150-year-old baths.

Knaresborough Pool

The existing Knaresborough Pool could be replaced with a new leisure centre, either on the same site or somewhere else

Pat Marsh, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said she backed the new company but raised concern over a lack of consultation.

She said:

“Many have felt that they have not had an opportunity to have their say on their facilities.

“We have not been involved in the final draft until now. Lots of seminars and overview and scrutiny, but no involvement.

“Therefore all we could do is vote for, against or vote for an amendment on the recommendations made by cabinet.”

But Stan Lumley, cabinet member for culture, media and sport, said he had insisted that people were kept informed on the new company,

He said:

“This is the culmination of almost three years work.

“I am quite dismayed that people can say that they have not been involved or informed. We have had several opportunities to discuss this and comment on what we planned to do.

“Right at the outset, almost three years ago, I insisted that officers not only kept members informed but also that borough council employees were kept informed along this journey.

“We have consulted and we have taken notice of that consultation.”

The borough council is also expected to borrow £26 million to invest in new facilities, such as a new Knaresborough leisure centre, which senior councillors said go “hand in hand” with the new company.

Leisure services in the district currently run at a loss of £3.5 million a year and some facilities have increased in cost year on year.

The council will spend £300,000 to set up the company through project start up costs and it is expected to operate from August 2021.

West Park Stray: Green shoots of recovery after months of mud

The West Park Stray has started to turn green again after months of mud. The sight of green shoots will be welcome for many who have missed the space.

Harrogate Borough Council started reseeding work just over a week ago and the results are already starting to show.

The work is set to be complete by September. The council’s leader promised that it will be back “better than ever.”

The Stray starts to turn green

The grass is starting to show.

West Park Stray remains closed off with orange netting around the site. It allows for the seeds to germinate and also for the footpath repairs.

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Overall, the council believes that the works will cost £129,971, broken down into:

The Stray in late April.

The Stray starts to turn green

Most of West Park Stray is turning green.

Yorkshire 2019, the organisers of the UCI World Cycling Championships, has agreed to pay £35,500 to help restore the Stray.

The council’s decision to outsource to Glendale Services was met with fierce criticism from local contractors who said they were “disgusted” they weren’t invited to tender.

It awarded the contract to the Lancashire-based contractors under “urgent circumstances” seven months after the UCI.

Council steps in to buy Summerbridge social housing

Harrogate District Council has stepped in to buy five homes in Summerbridge for social housing after a national housing charity pulled out of the development.

The homes, worth around £395,000, at Poppyfields will be offered to people in Upper Nidderdale as social rented properties.

The houses were originally allocated as four affordable rented properties and one shared ownership as part of a wider 13 home development.

Housing sites, such as Poppyfields, have a requirement to allocate 40% of homes to affordable housing.

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But the original housing association for the affordable homes, Home Group, pulled out of projects across the country in March in order to focus on other “strategic sites”.

Now, senior councillors on the authority’s cabinet have voted to step in to purchase the houses and offer them to local residents in order to salvage the housing scheme.

The council said the current pandemic has left “considerable uncertainty” in the housing market and an increase in demand for rented homes in Nidderdale.

Mike Chambers, cabinet member for housing, said it was right for the council to step in.

He said:

“It is very appropriate that we buy these houses.

“It allows us to provide much needed accommodation to people in Nidderdale and also has the effect of us being able to assist a small enterprise who might have otherwise had a difficult time in moving these houses.”

Strong indication Harrogate’s Nightingale will stay in place over winter

The Chief Executive of the NHS Sir Simon Stevens has given a strong indication that Harrogate’s NHS Nightingale at the Harrogate Convention Centre will stay in place for the winter.

The 500 bed Nightingale Yorkshire and Humber has yet to treat a single coronavirus patient. Its CT scans have recently started to be used for regular NHS patients.

Sir Simon Stevens appeared on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show this morning. He was asked about the use of the Nightingale hospitals in the future.  His response was the strongest indication yet that the Harrogate Nightingale will stay beyond its existing contract with Harrogate Borough Council, which owns the HCC,  that runs until the end of July.

“We are going to use them in two ways, first of all as we’re doing in Harrogate and Exeter, we want Nightingale type diagnostic care to ensure people can get tests and check ups and also we need to sustain a significant part of that capacity going into the winter, given the concerns of a resurgence of the virus.”

“We’ve seen in other countries in Australia, Spain and Germany that local lockdowns are required because coronavirus will be with us for months if not years to come.”

Harrogate convention centre lit up blue.

Harrogate Nightingale Hospital was lit up blue yesterday evening to celebrate the 72nd birthday of the NHS.

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Sir Simon has said that this virus could be “with us for months if not years”. His comments will have been closely watched by the hospitality industry in Harrogate as events at the HCC bring in millions of pounds of businesses.

The Stray Ferret previously reported that the borough council was preparing to reopen the convention centre in the autumn if the NHS did not renew its contract.

 

Strayside Sunday: Build Back Better? I fear not…

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

Yesterday was ‘Super Saturday’. 101 days since lockdown, the nation is emerging from the social constraints and restrictions of pandemic into what I hope will blossom into newly respected and cherished freedoms, rather than revert to the taken-for-granted entitlements we had allowed to develop pre-crisis.  Many too hope that yesterday’s grand opening will herald the dawn of what economists call a “V-shaped” recovery, one in which the financial markets, business wealth and personal incomes rebound swiftly to pre-pandemic levels.  But should we wish for an old, rather than a new normal?

During the early days and weeks of lockdown, for those of us fortunate enough to possess a garden or other outside space, could not fail to notice the nature that filled the space we and our noisy humanity had vacated.  Birdsong never sounded so good.  Now, even approaching Independence Day, traffic noise and the hustle and bustle of life are coming back and nature is in visible retreat.  I fear we have not heeded Mother Nature’s warning and that we will revert to environmentally disastrous type.

With luck, Boris Johnson’s cry of “Build, build, build” will let loose a new, green and historically respectful economy. One in which the streamlined planning laws the Prime Minister promises, create thriving high streets and town centres, mixed and affordable residential and business use property, local shops and eateries stocked with local produce, with attention paid to making our world-beating heritage work for the public good of all.  I’m not wholly optimistic; a planned £6,000 scrappage scheme to encourage us to buy electric cars has already been, well, scrapped; and a bicycling revolution has been announced, but little evidence of the pedalling republic has yet been seen.

Meanwhile, our leaders here in Harrogate are, in a special edition of “Residents’ News,” signposting a move away from a posture of Covid response, towards one of recovery.  This is welcome, as is the news that the borough council does not face an immediate threat of bankruptcy.  It’s clear too that the council understand how much effort it will take to reboot our town centres across the district.  Indeed, the council has received cash from the European Union (remember them?) Development Fund and will be using it, they tell us, to run a campaign promoting our high streets.  This is great news and the perfect opportunity to bring activist voices together, to create a recovery campaign with the full and engaged support of those it seeks to serve, and to build the ‘Town Teams’ that the council needs, both for their fresh ideas and for their undeniable industry.  We look forward to hearing the detail soon…

In last week’s column, I discussed the recent racist Facebook posts of Darley parish councillor Ernest Butler.  In so doing I expressed my opinion that public representatives (whether they are elected or co-opted into their position, as Mr. Butler was into his) are always on duty and, as such, should always be held to account for any and all views they express on social media, or indeed anywhere else.

My column prompted corrective email correspondence from Harrogate Borough Council Leader Richard Cooper.  In order to respect Mr. Cooper’s express wishes I will not quote here the contents of his email, save to say that he was not impressed by my column, in which I accused the council of “washing their hands” of the Ernest Butler affair.  In fact, the council’s code of conduct does not apply to social media comments made by councillors “in a personal capacity.” My piece suggested otherwise and I am happy to clarify that the council felt their hands, rather than being washed, were tied.

However, in his latest and much reported bigoted outburst, that historian David Starkey was not speaking, at or on behalf of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, did not stop them stripping him of his honourary fellowship.  Nor did it stop Harper Collins refusing, henceforth, to publish his history books.  Starkey has been so unceremoniously given the boot, precisely because his employers know that public opinion is a blunt instrument and makes no distinction between what we say in a private capacity and what we say in public.  In short, if you are a public figure, no matter how obscure, you simply don’t have the luxury of sharing abhorrent views.

Nonetheless, my opinion – and it is just my opinion – remains that it is always the role of our political leaders to call out any racism on their patch, when they become aware of it, whether they choose to do so comfortably, within the narrow confines of written procedure, or on the basis of their implied moral authority; sought freely through public election.

As I hope to continue to write opinion about the council and local politics for our growing Stray Ferret readership, and given I believe in dialogue, on Wednesday I wrote to Councillor Cooper directly to ask him whether he would like to meet, have the opportunity to share his vision for the district and to have a no doubt robust exchange of views.  At time of going to press my email to him has yet to be acknowledged.  I look forward to a response.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Council can ‘still balance budget’ despite £15m shortfall

Harrogate Borough Council faces “significant detriment” to its finances but can still come up with a balanced budget, say council officials.

Senior councillors on the authority’s cabinet signed off on a financial recovery plan last night which will see the authority review its budget and reserves as it faces a £15 million shortfall due to coronavirus.

As part of the plan, council bosses will review the authority’s 2020/21 budget, reserves, investment plans and capital expenditure including borrowing.

Officers are expected to report more on the council’s financial position once the reviews are complete and bring them before future cabinet meetings.

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It comes as councils across the UK are warning that some may have to issue section 114 notices – an emergency measure in dire financial circumstances – and potentially cut services to deal with the financial gaps.

Other authorities, such as Leeds City Council, have warned of that the crisis would leave them with no choice but to cut frontline services if no financial backing is given by government.

But Paul Foster, the council’s head of finance, assured senior councillors that the authority was not at the stage of putting together an emergency budget and that it still thinks it can meet a balanced budget.

He said: “It will come as no surprise that the council will be faced with significant financial detriment as a result of covid-19 as many other organisations are.

“The financial implications are challenging to estimate with certainty as the number of unknowns to how long lockdown will continue and what will recovery look like.

“I am pleased to say at this stage we are not at that position, we still think that we can balance the budget for this year. 

“I am not contemplating issuing a section 114 notice and we are also not looking to do an emergency budget.

“Only if we get to the stage that we need to issue a section 114 notice would we consider any more severe restrictions on spending.”

Mr Foster added that the council had faced additional costs in responding to the crisis on IT and homelessness and lost income on the convention centre, parking and leisure services.

However, Cllr Graham Swift, cabinet member for resources, said the council was in a better position than others and the authority had been “prudent” with its investments.

He said: “We are going to be impacted by a variety of lost revenues in car parks, pools and other things that generate money for us.

“But the reality is that we are not exposed with the risk profile that some very significant large and small councils around the UK are engaged in.

“I think it’s a testament to our council have put our finger in the pie in investment, but we have done it prudently and with a balance risk approach which is frankly paying off at this stage.”

Council misses debt recovery target by more than half

Harrogate Borough Council failed to meet targets for council tax collection, business rates and debt recovery this past year – which included one invoice worth £180,000.

According to a performance report due before the authority’s cabinet, the council missed its debt recovery target by more than half as just 18% was recovered against a target of 60%.

The authority said the performance was “significantly below” target. A total of £296,000 was referred to legal services to be recovered, of which £180,000 came from one invoice.

Officials said in the report that payment terms have been negotiated on the invoice and that they expect to recover the sum.

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Meanwhile, the borough council collected 97.9% of council tax against a target of 98.3%.

The authority also missed its business rates collection target by 1%.

Council bosses put part of the performance down to a slowing of collection in March when the country was put into lockdown amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Further support for those struggling to pay their council tax was revealed last week when the council offered to cut bills for vulnerable rate payers by £150.

It comes as the council has been hit with a deficit of £15 million amid the pandemic, part of which is down to a loss of income due to lockdown.

Senior councillors are set to discuss recovery plans tonight, which will include reviewing the authority’s budget and reserves.

District primary schools create scarecrows for Stray reseeding

Two scarecrows made by Harrogate district primary school pupils were placed on the Stray today as the borough council announced seeding work has started.

Pupils from Belmont Grosvenor School, Coppice Valley Primary School, Killinghall Primary School and five other schools created the scarecrows for West Park Stray, which is being reseeded.

Ben Grabham, from Harrogate Borough Council, confirmed the sowing of the grass seeds began this afternoon and that the scarecrows will remain in place while work is carried out.

West Park Stray is currently closed off to the public and the fences will continue to surround the area for a further four weeks.

It comes as the Stray is being re-seeded and repaired after damage caused from the 2019 UCI Road World Championships. The council estimated that the work would cost close to £130,000.

Works continue on West Park Stray, but the scarecrow prop could represent that sowing the grass seed will be soon.

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The announcement was made during one of the council’s regular Stray updates on their social media platforms.

Here's Ben with the latest update regarding West Park Stray… pic.twitter.com/mdFhY3xU95

— Harrogate Borough Council (@Harrogatebc) June 25, 2020