North Yorkshire Council will deploy staff at Harrogate Borough Council’s Civic Centre, its chief executive has confirmed.

The Civic Centre at St Luke’s Avenue opened in December 2017 after HBC sold its offices in Harrogate, including Crescent Gardens for £4m, to help fund the move.

HBC said the move would lead to savings of £1m a year due to reduced maintenance and energy costs.

But with the impending abolition of the authority, there has been a question mark over what would happen to the building.

All of Harrogate Borough Council’s staff, except chief executive Wallace Sampson who is set to receive a redundancy package worth £101,274, will transfer over to the new authority on April 1.

North Yorkshire County Council chief executive Richard Flinton, who will become the boss of the new council, told business leaders in Harrogate last night that the new authority “has no intention of sucking people into a ‘super HQ’ based at County Hall (In Northallerton)”.

He was speaking at a Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce meeting at Rudding Park alongside Cllr Carl Les, Conservative leader of NYCC and future leader of the new authority.

Mr Flinton said:

“We want a main office in every district area, We will be keeping the new office building in Harrogate and basing staff there. All the planners, development and housing people — all the main people that businesses and the public need to engage with — will be based in Harrogate.”

There had been concerns that, through the devolution process, the newly-built, bespoke council headquarters would no longer be needed as services were centralised across North Yorkshire.

The project was initially forecast to cost in the region of £9m, with £4m of that paid for by the sale of its other buildings. A contract of £11.5m was awarded to construction firm Harry Fairclough Ltd which has since gone into administration

HBC has since said the overall cost of the civic centre was £13.1m. However, an investigation by the Stray Ferret revealed the actual cost, including the value of the land which had not been included by the council, was in fact at least £17m.

Read more:

• EXCLUSIVE: True cost of civic centre was £17m
• Has Harrogate’s £17m civic centre met its aims?

Mr Flinton last night said preparations are ongoing to ensure a smooth transition from April 1. He compared the situation to the new millennium in 2000 when there were fears that technology would stop working when the clock struck midnight.

He said he wants local government reorganisation “to be the new millennium bug”.

“There was hype, worries and concern then it was a damp squib. There’s a million and one concerns but I hope it’s a millennium bug scenario and services are enjoyed by residents as they continue to be now.”

He added:

“There will be a lot of lifting and shifting of teams from the districts to the new unitary. That restructuring will carry on for the next year or so. Bear with us through that period.”

In this article, which is part of a series on the 12 stories in the Harrogate district that shaped 2022, we look at the way our communities market the death of the Queen and the ascension of King Charles III.

The announcement of the death of Her Majesty the Queen on Thursday, September 8 led to a series of historic events across the Harrogate district. 

Among the first was a two-minute silence held by the Ripon hornblower following the setting of the watch at 9pm, less than three hours after the official announcement. 

Tributes quickly came in from dignitaries around North Yorkshire, including the Lord Lieutenant, Jo Ropner, who said: 

“I had the privilege of meeting Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace when I was appointed as Lord Lieutenant in 2018, and I know from personal experience that every engagement was conducted with grace and genuine interest, that every person felt the spark from meeting not only their monarch, but a truly remarkable woman whose commitment to her role will be remembered for generations to come.” 

The following morning, official arrangements began to be put in place to mark the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch. 

Church bells tolled for an hour at noon, while flags at public venues, including Ripon Town Hall, Knaresborough House and the Royal Hall in Harrogate, were flown at half mast. 

Many churches opened books of condolence for people to sign, and invited people to visit and pray. Flowers were laid on the grass by the war memorial in Harrogate. 

A number of events were cancelled over the following days as a mark of respect. Sporting fixtures around the country were called off, including Harrogate Town’s match against Carlisle. 

Both Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council cancelled all meetings for the week following the Queen’s death. 

Read more:

• Queen’s coffin drape supplied by royal flag makers in Knaresborough
• Harrogate district pays final respects to the Queen

On Sunday, September 11, a ceremony was held by the war memorial in Harrogate. It saw the Mayor of the Borough of Harrogate read the proclamation of the new King. 

A similar ceremony was held in Ripon, where Deputy Lord Lieutenant Richard Compton was on duty to read the proclamation. 

Over the following days, in unprecedented circumstances, some businesses altered their opening hours and some major events had to be changed too. 

Nidderdale Show was forced to move from its traditional Monday slot when the Queen’s funeral was announced for the same date. However, it later said the weekend show had proved a success and future events would be held on a Sunday. 

The funeral on Monday, September 19 saw several businesses close for the day, including Bettys tea rooms, Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, and RHS Garden Harlow Carr. 

Many supermarkets closed all day, or opened from 5pm onwards. Bin collections were suspended for the bank holiday and council-run leisure centres were closed. 

The funeral was shown on big screens at Ripon Cathedral and the Royal Hall in Harrogate, as well as some pubs.

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

This week, Harrogate Borough Council was on the receiving end of the Stray Ferret’s interest in its sparkling, circular, glass-fronted, council headquarters at Knapping Mount.  This to replace the down at heel Victorian jewel at Crescent Gardens that served as the council’s home between the 1930’s and 2017.  At question, both the decision-making rationale and the economic fundamentals of the move.  Given the usually somnolent nature of the council’s communications in response to our publication, it has been with some surprise that the investigation has provoked a series of carefully written council Tweets and a special edition of its “Resident’s News” email to issues its denials.

It seems the investigation struck a nerve; not least the claim, based on assessments made by local estate agents, architects and quantity surveyors, that the land value of the site at Knapping Mount can be estimated at £4.5 million.  Given that the adjacent Springfield Court parcel of land (which is roughly half the Knapping Mount acreage) sold with planning permission to developers for £4.8 million just a couple of years ago, this does not seem an unreasonable estimate.

In one of its Tweets the council said: “The land at civic centre did not cost the council £4.5million. We already owned it, so the cost was £0.”  This is an answer to a question the Stray Ferret did not pose.  The point made was that the council had a duty to maximise taxpayer value as it explored its relocation options, including an assessment of the value of the Knapping Mount plot, both with and without planning consents.  Saying that Knapping Mount cost £0 is either voodoo economics or commercially illiterate.  Neither is good enough.  Further, a Tweet like the one published is silly and, in my view, serves only to mislead Harrogate’s good burghers.

It leads one to the unavoidable conclusion that the council ‘did decree’ they were going to have their stately pleasure dome come what may. Close to town, nuzzled into a leafy hillside, shaped around a consensus building demi-sphere, this was to be their Xanadu.  At a time when, even pre-Covid, the council was facing real financial challenges, it was (and remains) their duty to mangle every last drop of value from the council’s estate – which they hold on trust for the public – and that should include being live to the economic potential of all its land assets.  National campaign group The Taxpayer’s Alliance agrees.

I accept that being a modern public servant is a hiding to nothing; everyone is a critic.  But when decisions are made that place a premium on vanity and status, and disregard utility, service, and cost effectiveness, they need to be called out.  The great days of building neo-gothic municipal town halls as palaces of leadership are long gone; I would argue that in contemporary society we don’t much care what the council building looks like; we care whether the services we receive for the council tax we pay feels like a fair deal.  I’m not sure Harrogate Borough Council gets it.

When Covid struck and Harrogate Convention Centre was named as one of the Government’s Nightingale Hospitals, I confess I felt pride.  And it seemed morally right that the council gave use of the facility to the NHS free of charge.  Now we know that the HCC will remain a Nightingale until at least March 2021, left in place – take your pick – either to provide specialist care, NHS Winter Pressures cover, or Covid second (or third) wave capacity.  I’ve written here before that diverting HCC away from conference use deprives Harrogate’s economy of up to £57 million per annum.  That’s a huge fiscal hole to fill, particularly in “new normal” circumstances. And now it seems the HCC may well be out of commission for two years, which has come as a bitter blow to local businesses already on their knees and (I suspect) to the chagrin of the council.  Its ‘greater good’ decision has come back to haunt it – even when it does the right thing, Harrogate Borough Council is unlucky.

Talking of which, word reaches that Boris Johnson aims to fast track his plans for regional devolution for implementation in 2022.  If brought into effect, this will mean that Harrogate Borough Council would be subsumed into a newly empowered and funded North Yorkshire unitary authority, with a directly elected Mayor.  What this will mean for the political careers of local politicians like HBC leader Richard Cooper, one can only speculate.  It wouldn’t comfort me if he were catapulted onto a larger political stage before he can demonstrate he has mastered the footlights at the local rep.  Still, if devolution does go ahead, and Harrogate Council ceases to exist, we might yet be able to realise the true value of Knapping Mount.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More:

• Strayside Sunday: Is Harrogate too dependent on its hospitality industry?
• Column: Not all of Rishi Sunak’s measures will help Harrogate’s hospitality industry