The head of Harrogate’s tourism body says it will continue to use social media influencers and new marketing campaigns after facing questions over the spending of almost £6,000 of taxpayers’ money.

Gemma Rio, head of Destination Harrogate, was quizzed by members of Harrogate Borough Council’s overview and scrutiny commission last night.

It came after £5,220 was spent on a giant snow globe at London’s King’s Cross station and £700 was paid to a travel blogger to promote Harrogate at Christmas, as first reported by The Stray Ferret.

Ms Rio said the marketing methods were a “toe in the water” as part of a new tourism strategy and that similar campaigns would run again.

She said:

“We’re absolutely delighted with the snow globe.

“Not only was it great for us to be reaching out to new markets in the south-east, but it also generated a lot of interest from our stakeholders locally.

“Those stakeholders have since come to ask to buy into our campaigns which will further extend our reach.”

Council leader Richard Cooper also defended the snow globe, which promoted train services to Harrogate. He said one was also used in Leeds and “a number of other locations across the district”.

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This followed questions over how many visitors came to Harrogate as a result of the snow globe and if the £5,220 was well spent.

Ms Rio said the visitor numbers were “difficult to monitor” and that there was a greater focus on creating a “sustained brand profile” which would promote the district over a long period of time.

She said:

“Place marketing generally is rarely intended for immediate conversion.

“We could have very well hit our target market, for example, a woman in her 50s in King’s Cross station going to work.

“She’s seen the snow globe, interacted with the Visit Harrogate team, picked up a leaflet and been impressed, but the reality is she’s actually already booked all of her festive plans.

“So when she sees our gardens campaign in the spring, or an article we’ve placed in the travel pages of The Telegraph, she will continue to be impressed by Harrogate and she may well come in Christmas 2022 or have a summer holiday in 2023.

“That’s how we manage all of our place marketing.”

Bristol-based blogger Heather Cowper, who runs Heather on Her Travels, was the social media influencer paid £700.

One of the Instagram posts.

After visiting Harrogate, she published an article listing “11 fun things to do” in the district and there have since been questions over how many people actually saw the content online.

Defending the £700 spends, Ms Rio said: 

“We chose Heather Cowper because her following is largely made up of women in their over 50s, which is a key target market for us.

“£700 does sound like a lot of money when it’s reported that it only got two shares. The reality is that the campaign actually got over 10,000 views on Instagram.”

Ms Rio added: 

“We will continue to look for digital influences that align with our target markets and we will monitor their return on investment.

“We have to ask our residents, business and councils to have a little faith that everything we’re doing is resulting in those visitor numbers.”

Two Harrogate 26-year-olds are opening a new restaurant and bar on King’s Road next week.

Charlie Moorby and Tom Moxham hope Frog, which will begin serving customers on Wednesday, will bring a “neighbourhood hub” to the Harrogate street.

They hope it could help King’s Road follow Cold Bath Road by becoming more of a destination hub.

Mr Moorby said renovation work is nearly complete. The site, previously Ramus Seafood and What’s Cooking, has been completely refurbished.

The large restaurant will include outdoor seating to the side and front.

Frog has been in the pipeline since last summer.

The two men, former Harrogate Grammar School and Ashville College students, have worked in numerous Harrogate hospitality venues.

This is the first independent venture for Mr Moorby.

After being friends for over a decade, the pair felt they would work well as business partners. Mr Moorby has taken charge of the drinks side and Mr Moxham is overseeing the food and restaurant.

Mr Moorby said:

“We have aimed the whole thing at having a homely feel. We want people to feel like they’re at home or in their friend’s front room. We thought there was a bit of a gap in Harrogate for having high-quality food without the big price tag on it.”

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Speaking about the choice of location on King’s Road, Mr Moorby said they wanted the venue to be more of a community venture than a late-night establishment in the town centre:

“We used Cold Bath Road as an example. Five, six years ago there wasn’t much going on but now there’s so much going on. We felt like the same is happening on King’s Road, it’s becoming its own little suburb.”

About 40 people can be accommodated and enjoy the Asian and South American-inspired menu. About 10 members of staff will be employed.

Churchgoers in Bilton have delighted children each day during Holy Week by giving away free Easter chicks.

Members of Bilton Grange United Reformed Church have knitted 165 chicks and leave about 20 on the hedge outside the church each morning.

Each one contains a message saying, ‘Please take this free gift’.

The volunteers have run similar community-minded initiatives during other Christian festivals. For instance, they have put out angels at Christmas and doves at Whitsun to spread joy.

The gifts are knitted at their social gatherings.

Norma Trotter, who is one of the volunteers, said:

“There’s so many sad things going on in the world so we just hope it will raise a smile and make some children happy.

“It gives us pleasure to make them happy and it spreads the Easter message. If you do good you feel good.”

The chicks will appear on the hedge at the junction of Skipton Road and Woodfield Road every morning until Easter Sunday.

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A plan to demolish buildings on a Harrogate Borough Council depot to make way for car parking space looks set to be approved.

The borough council plan would see six buildings on the Claro Road depot site flattened in order to create space for bin lorries and other council vehicles to park.

As part of the plan, 10 electric vehicle charging points would also be implemented in an effort to encourage the use of electric and hybrid cars.

A total of 47 car park spaces would be created, along with 36 for council vans and 36 for bin lorries. 

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The council also plans to build a new toilet and shower block on the site.

Officials at the authority have recommended that the plan is approved a planning committee meeting on Thursday, April 21.

A council report due before councillors next week says that the proposal would have a “positive impact” on the local area.

It says:

“The proposed development will have a positive impact on the character of the area and will have no significant impact highway safety, or residential amenity.”

Council officials added that the introduction of electric vehicle charging points would help to improve the “sustainability of the site and help reduce greenhouse gases”.

Marketplace lender Assetz Capital has invested £3m into the development of new flats in Harrogate town centre.

Harrogate-based Tate Estates planned to build 12 two-bedroom apartments at 108 Station Parade by last year.

The development will be situated on 108 Station Parade in Harrogate central

However, the scheme encountered problems due to covid. Lockdowns and construction material shortage disrupted the building schedule.

Ciaran McGivern, relationship director for Assetz based in the north-east, acts as a retained advisor for Tate Estates.

He said:

“I’m delighted to be helping a high-quality client in Tate Estates with their development in Harrogate.

“We hope to continue the excellent working relationship we have established, and this is the first of many successful deals we can fund.”

Rhys Davies, group finance director of Tate Estates, said:

“It was fantastic to get this investment from Assetz on what will be the first in a series of platform development deals.”

It is now hoped the block of flats will be completed in the second quarter of this year.

Harrogate district entrepreneurs boosted by start-up competition

StriveLive, an initiative which helps start-ups, has run a competition to help grassroots entrepreneurs in the Harrogate district launch their business

The StriveLive Harrogate project was funded by Harrogate Borough Council and commissioned by the York and North Yorkshire Growth Hub.

Fourteen local entrepreneurs received help from StriveLive through a series of workshops, advice sessions and challenges over seven weeks.

The candidates then competed to impress business experts for the chance to win £2,500.

Business experts from the National Grid, Buying Hobbycraft, Harrogate Borough Council and YNY Growth Hub were included on the panel.

They awarded prizes to participants in five categories.

Karen Allen from Kidzplay Play Box picked up two awards. She won ‘most customer orientated’ and ‘best business concept’.

Hanna Dilley, founder of Benji’s Bites toddler food, won ‘best marketing,’ with Oliver Brown’s business, Wrapd Studios, winning ‘best branding’.

Ms Allen said:

“Strive popped up on my social media at a point when I was searching for support with the business.

“The company gave me the confidence to move forward, the understanding to face the challenges, and the connections within the local area to continue the support after the course finished.”

Clare Parish, from Four Legs Pet Care, and Graham Dodds, from GMD Home Improvements, both received Strive start-up awards.

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Villagers in Bishop Monkton say climate change has led to increased flooding in their village over the past decade — and two housing developments, with a total of 125 new homes, will exacerbate the problem.

Bishop Monkton Action Group was formed two years ago to raise awareness in the village about a 98-home development on Moor Road by Alfa Homes and 25-homes by Kebbell Developments on Knaresborough Road.

The group’s members are residents Kenneth Barker, Jonathan Beer, Harvey Bigg, Martin Minett, Raj Selvarajan and Bob Upton.

Both sites in the village, which is five miles south of Ripon, were allocated for development in Harrogate Borough Council’s Local Plan, which means they are likely to be approved in some form.

But the action group is holding out hope that they will be dismissed outright because surface water at the two sites will run off into Bishop Monkton Beck, a small river that runs through the village.

Major implications

The group says freak flood events are becoming more common in the village.

One resident submitted an objection to both developments that said from 2011 to 2020 the village faced nine days of floods, which was the same as the previous 50 years combined.

A spokesperson for the action group said

“The wider cumulative impacts of these developments will have major implications to the village in our view.”

The Alfa Homes proposal

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Flood risk assessment

A flood risk assessment submitted on behalf of Alfa Homes says surface water from the development will be discharged into Bishop Monkton Beck, which the Environment Agency classes as a river.

The developer said it has factored in a 30% increase in rainfall due to climate change but the risk of flooding would remain low.

A flood assessment submitted on behalf of the smaller Kebbel Developments scheme said surface water run-off into the river “will not increase flood risk elsewhere.”

That scheme will store water in a tank before it is discharged into the river.

However, members of the action group fear the two schemes, as well as a plan to increase the number of caravans on a local holiday site, could make flood events like those seen in 2015 and 2020 worse.

The two applications have almost 300 objections between them, with many people citing fears about flooding in the village.

North Yorkshire County Council, which is the flood authority, said HBC should refuse the application on flood grounds. It said:

“[The development] will ultimately increase the risk of flooding and exacerbate an already flood prone area; potentially further jeopardising people, property and critical infrastructure.”

Mike Mulligan, director at Kebbell Developments, sent the following response:

“The site is allocated for residential development in the adopted Harrogate Local Plan and therefore the principle of development has already been established. The comments and concerns of local residents on surface water flooding are noted and our engineers are liaising with the relevant bodies on the detailed design of the on-site attenuation and drainage scheme.

“We can confirm that the surface water drainage scheme for the development will meet all the necessary requirements. The key principle of the scheme is to ensure that the surface water is attenuated on the site in a large storage tank before being slowly discharged into the Beck at an agreed discharge rate.”

Afla Homes did not send a response at the time of publication

Police in Harrogate have arrested a woman who was wanted on recall to prison.

The 21-year-old, of no fixed address, was released from prison on licence this month.

According to police, she was released early from a 16-week sentence after committing multiple offences, including assault and shoplifting.

After failing to comply with her licence conditions, police said on Tuesday she was wanted for recall to prison and appealed to anyone who knew where she was to get on touch.

However, in an update today, North Yorkshire Police said:

“This afternoon she was arrested and remains in custody.”

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Campaigners believe it is extremely unlikely a local authority being established to shape and run North Yorkshire’s public services in the 21st century will reflect its population as less than a third of those running to represent communities are women.

An analysis of the 310 candidates running to serve a five-year term on North Yorkshire Council from next month has found just 90 are women.

All the main parties contesting the election are fielding significantly fewer women candidates than men, a situation which is also replicated by the independent candidates as a group.

Of its 90 candidates the Conservatives are fielding 20 women. The Liberal Democrats have 13 female candidates out of 48, while the Green Party has 18 women out of 50 candidates. The Labour Party has selected 19 women out of the 67 candidates it has put forward.

In some areas of the county the gender imbalance is more pronounced than others. Of the 33 candidates in the Craven area just six, or 18%, are women.

While the gender imbalance of the candidates roughly reflects the 26% of female councillors currently elected to North Yorkshire County Council, some other nearby local authorities have significantly higher proportions of women. More than 50% of Leeds City councillors are women.

Frances Scott, founder of the 50:50 Parliament, a group dedicated to enabling women to progress in politics, said with a low proportion of female candidates across all the parties for the North Yorkshire poll “it seems well nigh on impossible that the elected body will be truly reflective of the population”.

She said society needed to question why people from a group of half of North Yorkshire’s population were unable or not choosing to participate in the election.

She said:

“It’s partly about the selection committees not choosing women. We tend to choose in our own image and what we have seen before as the image of a politician. All these things are changing, but not quickly enough.”

Ms Scott added while some women were not prepared to put up with “having stones thrown”, legislation was needed to enable parents to support each other. She said: “If we are going to engage the brightest and the best to run the country we need to make sure the institutions are ones that will attract the brightest and best.

“In order to succeed in politics you need to have the support of your family and we need men to be supportive of women going into these roles.”

Many party officials privately admit changing what has traditionally been seen as a “boys’ club” at County Hall could take years as it would mean changing voters’ perception of the type of person that would be a suitable community representative.

However, all political groups said the main reason for a low proportion of female candidates in the election was a lack of women coming forward.

A spokesman for the Conservative Whitby and Scarborough group said its selection policy was “absolutely gender neutral” and out of the women who had come forward to be candidates in its area only one had not been selected.

He said:

“We can only put forward female candidates if female candidates apply.”

A Liberal Democrat spokeswoman said the Richmond constituency party had noted women were facing more practical and emotional barriers to becoming councillors than men, with many already juggling family and work commitments.

A Labour Party spokesman for the area added the gender imbalance was partly being perpetuated because established councillors, most of whom are men, were more likely to be selected due to their experience. He said the party was in favour of policies which boosted candidates from under-represented groups.

A Richmond constituency Green Party spokeswoman added:

“We have a policy of pushing women forward, but as a small party it’s more a matter of finding who is willing to stand.”

APS, which runs a national electric vehicle charger repair and maintenance service in Harrogate, has partnered with Harrogate College to set up a training and recruitment programme.

Harrogate College will be introducing the new course to help the borough transition to electric cars.

Principal Danny Wild of Harrogate College said:

“We are determined to support emerging green technologies and have been working closely with local firms so we can provide the appropriately skilled, work-ready students they need.

“The electric vehicle sector is a rapidly growing one that represents a fantastic opportunity for both our students and local businesses.”

Despite having more electric vehicles than any other district in North Yorkshire, the Stray Ferret recently reported how Harrogate is one of the ‘worst prepared areas in the UK’ for transitioning to electric vehicles.

It was estimated that the borough had just one charging point for every 134 electric or hybrid cars.

However, APS Business Development Manager, John Dyson, defended the situation.

He said:

“It is ironic that Harrogate has been criticised so strongly for a lack of action over installing electric vehicle chargers when there actually is so much going on behind the scenes.

“Recent announcements by Transdev, that all Harrogate buses are to be electrified, and Harrogate Borough Council, which is to install 34 charge points in local car parks, gives a taste of just what is on its way.”

The level 3 award in the Installation and Commissioning of Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment will start in September at Harrogate College.

Linley & Simpson fundraise for children’s hospice

In training (from left) Callum Collbeck, Pawel Ziemak, Freddie Purdy, Adam Hughes and Josh Boocock

Linley & Simpson will start a year of fund-raising challenges in support of Martin’s House Children’s Hospice.

The estate agent, which has branches in Ripon and Wetherby, is marking its 25^th anniversary by aiming to raise £25,000 for Martin House, based at Boston Spa.

The team has previously managed to raise £100,000 in support of the charity.

As part of the fundraise, they will abseil 50ft down the Cow and Calf rocks at Ilkley Moor. The following week, 40 colleagues will also face a 12k course of mud, ice and obstacles.

Emily Wilkinson, Wetherby Branch Manager at Linley & Simpson, said:

“The work of Martin House has touched the lives of our people in many ways, and we are pleased to be able to ‘give back’ through this initial set of events as well as a host of others that are in the pipeline.”

The challenge begins on June 16, with more information available on the website. 

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A man has come forward after police issued an appeal following a serious sexual assault in Harrogate.

The incident took place on Oxford Street in Harrogate between 2.30am and 3am on Thursday, November 25 last year.

North Yorkshire Police issued a CCTV image yesterday of a man they wanted to speak to in connection with the incident.

The force confirmed today that a man has come forward following the appeal.

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