Stray Views: ‘Something must be done’ about Harrogate e-scooters

Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Can anything be done to curb the increasing use of our pavements by cyclists and now e-scooters? 

“The other morning I was nearly knocked over near the Odeon by a youth riding an electric scooter at some speed on the pavement and last night a cyclist brushed past me from behind on the pavement in North Park Road. 

I am a fairly alert 72 year-old but I fear that one of our older residents or those harder of hearing will be injured or worse if something is not done. You just don’t hear them coming.

Stephen Oliver, Harrogate

‘Scruffy’ displays in Harrogate

Come on, Harrogate, this is not good enough.

One-hundred yards from the town centre and otherwise well-kept flower displays. This is not re-wilding – it is scruffy.

Picture and letter by Chris Graville, Harrogate

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

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In Pictures: Harrogate Carnival fills streets with dance, music and colour

Thousands flocked to Harrogate town centre this morning for the Harrogate Carnival.

Starting at the war memorial and making its way down to Valley Gardens, a parade of dance, music and colour turned the town into a cultural hub.

Launched in 2019, the carnival is commissioned by Visit Harrogate – a tourism organisation run by North Yorkshire Council and produced by Harrogate International Festivals.

Cuisines from around the world, from Greek gyros to Japanese rice dishes to Turkish kebabs and churros were also available for foodies in the Valley Gardens.

Here is a selection of pictures from this morning’s parade.

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Photo of the Week: Studley Royal

This week’s photograph was taken by Heather Middleton, capturing a group of deer looking over the hill at Studley Royal.

Heather Middleton

Photo of the Week celebrates the Harrogate district. It could be anything from family life to capturing the district’s beauty. We are interested in amateur and professional photographs, in a landscape format.

Send your photographs to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk for a chance to be featured next week, we reserve the right to adjust and crop images to fit into our format.

 

Harrogate Parkrun founder’s trek through ‘the toughest footrace on earth’

Harrogate man Adam Prentis loves a project.

Whether it be helping to set up Harrogate’s Parkrun on the Stray or trekking through the Sahara Desert in a feat of endurance, he has a taste for the more difficult tasks.

A keen runner, Adam took up the sport quite late in life when he was 46 years old.

From there, he’s chaired his local running club, set up a community park run and even been selected for Britain in the triathlon and duathlon events.

“I like doing things that are difficult,” he says.

But what motivates him to take on such projects and how did he arrive at the idea of setting up Parkrun?

Starting out

While some athletes are born to run and take on feats of endurance such as marathons, Adam’s story is slightly different.

Born in Bramhope before moving to Harrogate in the year 2000, Adam was, by his own admission, not “particularly fit” before he took up running.

“I was a typical businessman of the 80s and 90s who did a lot of corporate lunching and all of the business type stuff. I wasn’t particularly fit.”

In 2009, Adam’s friend had the New York Marathon down on his bucket list.

He set about training for the marathon. The schedule was tough and left him with injuries.

“In my particular case through my life choices and lifestyle, I’d been sitting in a chair a lot for most of my working career or sitting in a car.

“It took about two years for everything to settle down.”

Despite the hurdles starting out, Adam came up with a schedule for the New York Marathon and completed in November 2009 – an achievement which he describes as “life affirming”.

Adam competing for Great Britain.

Adam competing for Great Britain.

But, for Adam, the marathons did not stop there. He is constantly on the lookout for new challenges.

“They are projects. I think if they were easy, then everyone would do them.

“But, if they are hard then they take an awful lot of project planning, training and effort. They give you structure and I happen to like structure in my life.

“For a good training programme, you know what you’re doing every day and every week for a long period of time and then you execute at the end of it. That execution might go well or it might go badly.”

Adam has since gone on to run the five marathon majors in Berlin, Boston, London, Chicago and New York – which he went back to run again three times.

‘The toughest footrace on earth’

Perhaps one of Adam’s most remarkable projects was the Marathon des Sables in 2013.

The feat of endurance tasks participants with six marathons in six days through the unforgiving climate and terrain of the Sahara Desert.

“You have to be absolutely off your rocker to sign up for it, really.”

Adam first came across the event when he was looking for his next project in 2012. 

He read a news article about the Marathon des Sables, which describes itself as the “toughest footrace on earth”, and that was enough to make him sign up.

The race is self supporting, meaning those taking part have to carry their own food, clothes and medical supplies for the week.

Adam flew in through Morocco for the event and took it on for his 50th birthday. 

“It’s an incredibly arduous event over six days in extreme temperatures. Your body falls apart slowly over those six days if you get it wrong.

“For anyone who has done it, it remains a marker in their life.”

The experience drove him to other projects, such as climbing Mount Everest in 2019.

Adam and his mountaineer friend, Chris Brown, climbed the mountain to base camp before running a marathon back down to the finish line at Namche Bazar in Nepal.

“It’s like running around a quarry, there’s a lot of broken debris under your feet.

“It’s incredibly arduous as an event. Just getting to the start line is arduous, a lot of people don’t get to the start line because they get altitude sickness.”

Adam pictured running the Everest marathon from base camp.

Adam pictured running the Everest marathon from base camp.

The terrain, temperature and environment around the Everest marathon is too much for some to handle.

Climbing the mountain to base camp took the pair two weeks to complete.

Meanwhile, the overnight temperatures dropped to -18 degrees and the diet on Everest saw Adam suffer some muscle wastage.

“For most people, once they get to base camp and they are there and they haven’t suffered altitude sickness too badly, they want to get down as quickly as possible.”

In between his projects, Adam has competed for Great Britain at triathlon and duathlon in his age category.

In 2018, he finished second in the World Championships in duathlon at the age of 55.

But, one of Adam’s proudest projects lies closer to home and can be seen in practice every Saturday morning.

Founding Harrogate Parkrun

In 2011, Adam secured a trial in Harrogate for a Parkrun.

The idea came to him when he was stood watching his son play football one Saturday morning on the Stray.

He had not long been running, but saw an opportunity to create something that people of all ages and abilities could take part in.

“I thought that Harrogate could have a Parkrun, why have we not got a Parkrun? So I set about investigating it.”

A Parkrun in Harrogate from 2015.

Adam approached Harrogate Borough Council about using the land near Empress roundabout, which was only used for football and dog walking at the time.

The council offered him a trial licence for the event.

“They came round and watched it and thought it was wonderful. They gave us a licence to start and it’s about 12 and a half years old now.

“It’s phenomenal, it’s been a really great success.”

Parkrun takes place every Saturday morning and sees men and women from beginners to aspiring athletes take part.

The success of Harrogate also saw Adam set up the Fountains Abby parkrun near Ripon.

Both now see on average 400 people take part each week.

For Adam, part of the reason for setting up the initiative in the first place was to offer something for everyone to take part in.

‘Harrogate needs a running track’

Recently, Adam has been looking for his next project.

This year, he stood down as chairman of the Harrogate Harriers running club after four years in post.

While there, he helped oversee the club through covid and the development of the junior and senior runners.

Now, he has his eye on a legacy project for the town – a running track.

“If you know anything about sport in Harrogate, it is lacking a running track.

“It is one of the only major towns in the country that doesn’t have a running facility that is accessible.”

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The town has two running tracks at the Army Foundation College and RAF Menwith Hill, but both are inaccessible to the general public.

For Adam, the lack of a facility is letting down potential athletes in the town who are forced to drive some 23 miles to York to train.

“I have a bee in my bonnet about it.

“Not because of my interest in running, particularly. But because we have an awful lot of football pitches and yet there aren’t a lot of Premier League stars coming out of Harrogate. We have cricket pitches everywhere, but there aren’t that many people who bat for England who come out of Harrogate.

“We have some really high national standard athletes in Harrogate and we do not have a facility that would be good for them to train on.”

Adam points out that a running track is not just about running, but also field athletics such as javelin, high jump and shot put.

He has tried for four years to make the project happen and get schools, landowners and the council on board to push it forward – but to no avail, so far.

But, despite the setbacks, it is still his ambition to try and get people interested in the idea and to create a facility for future generations.

“If I’ve got any ambitions at all, it’s that we build a legacy in town for athletics and sport.”

If you have any local sporting heroes who you think should be featured in Sporting Spotlight, contact calvin@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Harrogate coffee shop and bakehouse Brew Bar up for sale

A well-known Harrogate coffee shop has been put up for sale.

Brew Bar Harrogate, located on St Winifred’s Avenue near the Stray, offers a variety of coffees and breakfast foods, baked goods and a small retail shop. It’s a popular cafe for dog walkers and staff from nearby Harrogate Hospital.

The café opened in 2018 and then expanded into the next door unit. The owners have since opened another site in the centre of town called &…Harrogate.

The sale of the business comes as the owners “wish to concentrate their efforts on other business opportunities”, according to the listing agent.

The sale will set the buyer back £74,950 plus stock at valuation.

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The listing, represented by Alan J Picken The Business Transfer Agents, reports a turnover of £219,458 on 2023 accounts, as well as a net profit of around £60,000.

The listing says:

“Currently run on civilised day time hours, however offers immense scope to extend opening hours later into the evening or on weekends to take full advantage of its prime trading position and alcohol license in place, to increase sales and maximise profits.”

Brew Bar declined to comment when contacted by the Stray Ferret.

From Zulu dancing to inflatable lobsters: Everything you need to know about Harrogate Carnival

Harrogate town centre will become a cultural hub tomorrow when it welcomes the return of Harrogate Carnival.

Launched in 2019, the carnival is commissioned by Visit Harrogate – a tourism organisation run by North Yorkshire Council and produced by Harrogate International Festivals.

The free one-day event will showcase an array of world music and entertainment, as well as street theatre, a dance stage, and a food quarter.

Live dance and music performances will fill the streets of the town, including Leeds West Indian Carnival, Zulu performers, Ubunye, and St Aelred’s Irish Dance Group.

There will be an interactive display from Close-Act, an inflatable lobster from Lobster A la Cart, as well as moving sculptures from Hebden Bridge’s Handmade Parade.

A Chinese dragon will take centre stage.

Foodies will find cuisines from around the world, from Greek gyros to Japanese rice dishes to Turkish kebabs and churros.

People can also take part is various workshops to learn about international cultures, including a dhol drumming workshop with Punjabi Roots.

The parade will begin at 11am from the war memorial and will finish in the Valley Gardens.

Several roads will be closed between 10am to 1pm during the carnival, including Cambridge Road, Royal Parade and West Park.

More details on road closures can be found on North Yorkshire Council’s website.

A full programme of acts can be found here.

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Harrogate man admits pulling off pigeon’s wing

A Harrogate man has admitted pulling off the wing of a pigeon in Harrogate town centre.

Martin Gilham, 53, of Bewerley Road in Jennyfields, pleaded guilty to the offence on Oxford Street at Harrogate Magistrates Court yesterday.

Gilham also admitted a separate charge of being drunk and disorderly on Oxford Street on the same date.

The incidents took place on May 20 this year.

Gilham initially denied the charges but changed his pleas.

He is due to be sentenced at York Crown Court on August 17.

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Harrogate dominatrix ordered to pay £1 in £100,000 sex-trafficking racket

A Portuguese dominatrix who ran an international sex-trafficking and prostitution racket, earning over £100,000 in the process, has been made to repay just £1 to the public purse.

Fabiana De Souza, 43, and her English husband Gareth Derby, 55, were jailed for a combined 10 years in February last year after they were caught trafficking sex workers from Brazil and Portugal and running a brothel in Harrogate, where many of the sex workers were based after being flown in from abroad. 

Jessica Strange, prosecuting at today’s financial confiscation hearing at Leeds Crown Court, said that De Souza, who was excused attendance at court, had made £136,484 from the human-trafficking plot but had just £1 available in her accounts. 

She said the prosecution’s financial investigator found that she had no hidden assets. 

Derby, who appeared via video link from Moorland prison, had made profits of £28,288 and had £1,045 in cash or assets available. 

Mr Recorder R Ward ordered him to pay £1,045 into the public purse but De Souza was ordered to pay a solitary pound.

The former dominatrix was given one month to pay or face a further four weeks in prison. The former sex worker is due to be deported from the UK when she’s released from jail.

De Souza’s barrister Michael Fullerton said she was due to be deported on August 21.

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He claimed that some of her financial gains during the trafficking racket were from her work as a beautician and in the fitness industry. 

He said this money was “not…earned by her as a dominatrix with her own website during that period”.

Women treated like ‘commodities’

During the trial at the same court in December 2021, the jury heard that De Souza and Derby, from Norfolk, had been “flying in” sex workers from Europe and South America.

Prosecutor Nicholas Lumley KC said the couple treated the women like “commodities” as they made massive sums from their illicit trade.

De Souza, who provided dominatrix services to people in Harrogate, was said to be the ringleader of the “large-scale commercial operation” in which she and Derby, a high-earning engineer and machine specialist, flew in sex workers from Brazil and Portugal, paid for their flights and met them at airports, before sending them to sex dens where men paid for “massages” and “full (sex) services”.

They had exploited the “vulnerable” women for “significant” financial gain by “controlling (their) finances (and) choice of clients”, said Mr Lumley.

The prostitutes were put at a “significant financial disadvantage” and forced to lie to police to avoid detection.   

De Souza and Derby, who ran the lucrative business from their home in East Anglia, were arrested in August 2018 and charged with controlling prostitution for financial gain and human trafficking. 

They each denied the charges, but the jury found them guilty on both counts following a 10-day trial.

The charges related to six named women who worked at the Harrogate brothel and two properties in Norfolk between April 2017 and August 2018.

Mr Lumley 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”.

De Souza and Derby would pay for sex adverts within hours of picking the women up from airports around the country and would “set them up” at the flat on Bower Road. 

The adverts were placed on escort websites and included 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.

Thousands in bank transfers

Between May 2017 and August 2018, some £38,000 cash was deposited into De Souza’s bank accounts at branches in Harrogate and Norfolk. About £9,000 of bank transfers were then made to accounts in Brazil and Portugal using a money-services bureau. 

Mr Lumley said one woman was flown in on an EasyJet flight 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. 

They would arrange for a train ticket to be available at the airport as they moved the women around the country “or put them on a bus and sent them up to Harrogate or somewhere else”.

Following her arrest, De Souza, who is serving her sentence at a women’s prison in Peterborough, 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 had rented the Bower Road flat for over £700 a month and let rooms out to “others”, some of whom were “friends from Portugal”.

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

In a text sent to a friend in January 2018, he boasted of being a “smuggler of women”.

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

An undercover officer posed as a client to make appointments for the brothel on Bower Road. De Souza would answer the calls in “broken English” and arrange the appointment.

The officer was offered a “range of services”. On his first visit, dressed in civilian clothes, he was met by a sex worker named ‘Lisa’ who buzzed him into the flats above shops. 

De Souza and Derby, of Town Street, Upwell, south-west Norfolk, were each jailed for five years in February 2022. 

Long-standing Harrogate sandwich business for sale

A long-standing sandwich takeaway in Harrogate is up for sale.

Wedges & Co has been a mainstay on Cold Bath Road for many years.

But the owners are looking to sell the business and have a “well-deserved retirement”, according to listing agent Alan J Picken

Wedges, which sells hot drinks, breakfasts and cakes as well as hot and cold sandwiches, is on the market as a leasehold business for £149,950 plus stock at valuation.

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Alan J Picken, which is an Ilkley firm that specialises in selling businesses, says the company’s 2022 takings were £268,397 and net profit was “in excess of £100,000”.

The listing says:

“The business currently operates on most convenient opening hours five days a week, however there is scope to extend opening hours particularly Saturday to Sunday to increase sales and maximise profits.

“There is also scope to maximise sales via increasing the outside catering book and large sandwich orders for events/lunches.”

Wedges declined to comment about the sale when contacted by the Stray Ferret.

Developer appeals Harrogate office block conversion refusal

A developer has appealed a council decision to refuse a plan to convert Simpson House in Harrogate into flats.

Bramhope Property and Investments Limited tabled the proposal to North Yorkshire Council to convert the the former office block off Clarence Drive into 12 two-bedroom flats.

It would have seen the ground, first and second floors converted.

However, the authority rejected the plan in May this year on the grounds that the flats would not have enough natural light.

In a decision notice, the council said that existing trees and hedges at the site which would lead to “large amounts of shade” to the flats during the day.

Now the developer has taken the decision to the government’s Planning Inspectorate, which deals with planning disputes.

In documents submitted to the inspector, the developer argued that the council’s reason for refusal was “not based on any detailed technical evidence”.

It said:

“The local planning authority considers that the proposal would fail to provide adequate daylight within all apartments.

“However, the appellant has provided a detailed assessment following national guidance.

“This demonstrates that appropriate levels of daylight can be provided and as such the proposal is acceptable.”

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A government planning inspector will make a decision on the appeal at a later date.

The move comes after two previous proposals to change the use of the office block to residential were refused in 2022.

Meanwhile, another application by Artium Group was withdrawn in July 2022 amid concern from the former Harrogate Borough Council officers over the impact on neighbouring trees.