Badgers delay approval of 133 homes at Kingsley Road

Final approval for 133 homes on Kingsley Road in Harrogate has been delayed whilst more badger surveys are undertaken in the area.

Redrow Homes won outline planning permission to build the development on appeal in August 2020 after it was initially refused by Harrogate Borough Council.

As part of the application, the developer submitted two ecology studies that found there were four badger setts in the area but only one or two were still actively used.

A previous ecological study undertaken in 2019 by a different developer found no evidence of badgers.

Members of Kingsley Ward Action Group (KWAG) bought a trail cam, which is a camera that is left outside and captures the movement of animals.

They claim their investigation found evidence of 11 badger setts, six of which are still active.

Badger activity

Badgers and their setts are protected by law.

Developers must have a licence from Natural England to remove or modify a badger sett.

This afternoon, councillors on the council’s planning committee met to discuss a reserved matters application that dealt with the appearance and layout of the homes.

However, the four-legged mammals dominated the debate.

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To the north of the proposed site are train tracks owned by Network Rail.

Dan McAndrew, the council’s principal ecologist, said most of the badger setts are more than 30m away from the site on land owned by the rail body.

Mr McAndrew said he was satisfied the developer had put measures in place to protect the badgers.

He said:

“Badgers actually do well in urban fringe areas, they are able to adapt to those conditions. The key issue is, where are the setts located and can they be maintained?

“The main sett will not be affected and will be left in place.”

However, John Hansard from KWAG said his group’s badger surveys were at odds with the developer’s surveys. He criticised the 2019 survey.

He said:

“If you know what you’re looking for, signs of badger activity were plentiful, clear and unmissable, so why were they missed or ignored?”

‘Somebody has got to speak for the badgers’

Both Sue Lumby, Conservative member for Coppice Valley, and Victoria Oldham, Conservative member for Washburn, cast doubt on the developer’s claims that badgers would not be harmed by the development.

Cllr Lumby said:

“Somebody has got to speak for the badgers and that’s what we are trying to do.

“This population of badgers would have lived here for generations. I’m very, very concerned why the 2019 survey didn’t find any badgers.”

Cllr Oldham added:

“On the assumption you do get licence from Natural England, what mitigation are you prepared to offer for remaining badgers to forage? You are going to put tarmac, concrete where they like to dig for worms, for setts. What are you offering? What wildlife enhancement will there be on this estate?”

In response, Mike Ashworth, on behalf of Redrow Homes, said

“A significant area of site will be undeveloped and landscaped, 30% of the site, a lot more than a normal housing estate. In there you’d have a combination of planting of trees, wildflower, shrubs.”

An unimpressed Cllr Oldham responded:

“Badgers don’t eat pretty flowers, they like to eat worms.”

Further surveys

Mr Ashworth revealed the developer received permission from Network Rail last week to survey the land above the site for badgers.

After councillors rejected the council’s recommendation to approve the scheme, committee chair Cllr John Mann proposed deferment pending the publication of the badger survey, which councillors agreed to unanimously.

Election 2022: Oatlands and Pannal candidate preview

Ahead of polling day on May 5, the Stray Ferret is previewing each of the divisions in the Harrogate district up for election to North Yorkshire Council.

A total of 21 seats will be contested in the district with most of the major parties standing in each one.

Today, we look at the Oatlands and Pannal division, where four candidates have put themselves forward.

John Mann, Conservative

John Mann is the Conservative candidate for Oatlands and Pannal division.

Mr Mann is currently a councillor on Harrogate Borough Council, representing Harrogate Pannal ward.

He is also chair of the authority’s planning committee.

The Stray Ferret asked Mr Mann for comment for this preview, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

A Conservative party spokesperson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that they were confident in their election campaign and pledged to continue investing in services across North Yorkshire if elected.

A party spokesperson said:

“The Conservatives are fielding an experienced slate of candidates. This is important as we argue the case for local services with settlements from Selby to Richmond and Whitby to Settle.

“That case includes continued investment in local services that has seen a new pool in Ripon and the start of a new pool and leisure centre in Knaresborough.”

Gillian Charters, Green Party

Gillian Charters is standing for the Green Party in Oatlands and Pannal division.

Ms Charters taught at a Knaresborough comprehensive school for 20 years before retraining as a probation officer.

She now works part-time for a Quaker special school in North Yorkshire.

For 30 years, she has been a member of the Green Party, which she says is the party that has “both the environment and social justice at its heart”.

Ms Charters said she was standing for North Yorkshire Council because she wants to “improve living conditions and the environment” within the area.

Margaret Smith, Labour

The Labour candidate for Oatlands and Pannal is Margaret Smith.

Ms Smith worked for several years at a further education college before setting up a business focused on the use of IT in communities and small to medium-sized enterprises.

She said the company employed up to 25 people and provided opportunities to people, particularly those with childcare responsibilities.

On why she is standing, Ms Smith said:

“Although not resident in the actual division, I live quite close and regularly walk through the Oatlands area, use its facilities and have conversations with people out and about.

“It is one of Labour’s many environmental policies which will have a major impact in the area. We intend to invest in reducing residential streets to safe environments where families can walk, cycle and play, e.g by stipulating a 20 mph speed limit in residential areas.”

She added:

“Pannal has for some years now suffered by being used as a “rat run” for drivers coming from new housing developments built in  areas of the town without appropriate infrastructure – something which must be stopped.

“Residents on the streets around the Leeds Road traffic lights in Oatlands are now experiencing the same problem with motorists trying to avoid the lights on the main road. These are narrow streets with an infant school located on one of them – Cromwell Road.”

Ms Smith added that she would also support a town council for Harrogate and devolution of powers to parish councils, such as Pannal and Burn Bridge Parish Council.

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Justin Chan, Liberal Democrat

Justin Chan will be standing for the Liberal Democrats in the division on May 5.

Mr Chan is a lifelong Harrogate resident and currently works in retail as a customer services assistant.

He has a degree in politics and spent a year at Catania University in Sicily as part of an Erasmus exchange.

Mr Chan said he believes North Yorkshire Council should aim to create jobs, affordable and social housing and ease traffic congestion.

He said:

“It’s important to make local voices heard and to allow councillors strong decision-making powers to enable them to campaign for their local communities. 

“The new local authority should aim to create jobs, affordable and social housing and ease traffic congestion perhaps with a park-and-ride scheme. I will work to ensure Harrogate gets its own town council.”

Harrogate councillor calls for campaign to make class A drugs ‘shameful’

A fresh education campaign, with a similar message to the anti drink-driving stance embedded in the 1970s, is needed to teach children that taking class A drugs is “shameful”, a meeting has heard.

North Yorkshire has seen a significant rise in complex child death cases, such as drug-related ones over 2020/21 and analysis is being undertaken to examine why.

In a report to a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s young people scrutiny committee, the Child Death Overview Panel chair Anita Dobson said over the last year the panel was “mindful of an increase in drug-related deaths”.

She said it was thought the rise “may well be an indication of reduced mental wellbeing amongst young people, for which coronavirus could be a contributing factor” and that the panel would monitor the situation closely.

The concerns follow pledges by North Yorkshire and York’s past and present police, fire and crime commissioners to prioritise tackling county lines drug dealing gangs, which often target children, particularly in Harrogate and Scarborough.

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Councillors were told there had already been “a lot of work in educating children and young people directly” as well as parents and carers, to ensure people were aware of the risks of taking class A drugs.

Harrogate Central councillor John Mann told the meeting as well as tackling the supply of class A drugs, efforts to reduce demand for them were needed as “without the demand there would be no supply”.

He suggested an education drive, using a similar antisocial message to the 1970s drink-driving campaign, was required.

Cllr Mann said:

“As a local authority and as a country we need to try to reduce the demand and make it shameful to take class A drugs because we all have wider responsibilities as citizens.”

‘Complex situation’

After the meeting, the authority’s children’s services executive member, Cllr Janet Sanderson, said she agreed with making taking class A drugs socially unacceptable.

She said:

“We have to get the view of the young people out on the streets who are being tempted by these things and probably deal with an innovative approach to tackle it.

“In the 1970s it was normal to drink-drive. And then all of a sudden if you drove at 32mph in a 30mph area they stopped you and breathalysed you and it stopped it overnight.

“However, I can’t see that is going to be a straight lift and shift scenario with drugs because you can see people driving on the road, but drugs are more covert.

“With county lines we are looking at the people who are often selling the drugs also being the victims. It’s a hugely complex situation. We have got some good people working on this and some innovative ideas, but it is not going to be one single solution like naming and shaming.”

Strayside Sunday: Oh the trials of being an elected representative…

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

Following last week’s column on communitarianism, Shamima Begum and the Culture Wars, a reader emailed me with this missive: “Rubbish! Nowhere near Strayside. Local media should be for local news and opinion.” To spare blushes I won’t name the correspondent, nor share my reply, but I am stung into action. You want local. You’ve got it. I was going to do the most extraordinary budget since the war, or the 1% NHS “pay rise,” but I’ll stick to my Strayside knitting instead.

It must be difficult to be a local councillor. You pound the streets for months ahead of a local election, knocking the doors of mostly disinterested and often unfriendly strangers, canvassing their vote, making your pitch, doing your modest bit for the democratic process. Having convinced fully several hundred of your fellow residents to place their cross next to your name, you’re in. Elected to the Borough Council in the Conservative interest for the Pannal Ward, you take your first tentative steps in politics and, to mix my metaphors, you place both hands on the greasy pole and look upwards. What does the future hold? The heightened anticipation, the possibility, the responsibility, the accountability. The horrible burden of high office.

Councillor John Mann is chair of Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee. In January the committee gave final approval to developer Berkeley DeVeer (shades of “To The Manor Born?”) to build 14 new homes on land at Rossett Green Lane. The vote was close; 6 in favour, 5 against. Step forward councillor Mann to cast the crucial vote. Were he to vote against, with the ballot tied at 6 for, 6 against, he would, as chair, have had a further and final casting vote. Councillor Mann abstained, ducking the difficult, to the consternation of local residents.

Pressed by emails from “at least” six of his constituents asking why he declined to vote, councillor Mann remained silent. When reached by telephone for comment by a Stray Ferret reporter, the councillor heard the subject and there was suddenly a poor connection and then he put the phone down saying he couldn’t hear the intrepid journo. An immediate subsequent call and voicemail message was ignored. When contacted for their comment Harrogate Borough Council’s press office said it was a matter for Mr. Mann. “Nothing to do with us, Guv” and all that.

You can tell a lot about people in general and even more about their state of mind by seeing what comes up first in their YouTube feed. Latterly I have been through a “Living Large in a Tiny House” stage; in which people create beautifully designed mobile tiny spaces so that they can escape the rat race and move to sites in the great unspoilt outdoors (a condition brought on by lockdown no doubt). Currently I’m going through a Fran Lebowitz phase. A symptom, I’m sure, of my general disappointment in myself, in life and in the actions of my fellow self-identified cis-gendered man. As Ms. Lebowitz says, “You can’t go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people pretend that they do.” In his comedy sketch handling of the Stray Ferret’s enquiries into his accountability lapse over the Rossett Green Lane development, I feel Councillor Mann ditched all such pretence.

I suspect that Councillor Mann simply panicked when he realised he had answered a call from a Stray Ferret journo and I have some small sympathy for him. I’ve been on the receiving end of several uncomfortable encounters with the press. They are no fun. During my blissfully brief time in front line politics I was once confronted by the Daily Mirror on my front door-step. I bluffed my way through it but I was terrified, both in the moment and from that moment until my political irrelevance. Modern politics is not for the faint of heart. It’s a full-contact sport. But that’s because principle, civility and accountability are in short supply among our duly elected; crowded out as they are by pliability, bile and brass neck. In large part our politicians get the coverage they deserve. They also deserve an equal measure of our sympathy to sweeten the bitter taste of our contempt.

Oprah Winfrey’s meeting with the self-obsessed Megan Markel and the increasingly new age Prince Harry (he says he wants their new Archewell podcast to provide a ‘safe space’ in which people can ‘tell their stories’) is not the only ‘event interview’ this week. I’m delighted to be able to report that The Stray Ferret conducted a wide-ranging interview with Harrogate Borough Council Chief Executive Wallace Sampson OBE on Friday. This is great news for local democracy and marks the first time that a senior representative from the council has felt able to speak with this publication. Bravo. Let’s hope the discussion marks the start of a new chapter, one in which visible accountability and open dialogue bring the council and townspeople together in community.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

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Councillor criticised for staying silent on housing development

Residents in Rossett Green, Harrogate have expressed frustration at their local councillor for not explaining why he abstained to vote on a sensitive housing application.

In January, Harrogate Borough Council‘s planning committee gave developer Berkeley DeVeer final approval to build 14 homes on land at Rossett Green Lane.

The vote was passed by six votes to five.

Cllr John Mann, a Conservative who chairs the planning committee and whose Harrogate Pannal ward includes the Rossett Green site, abstained.

If the votes were tied, Cllr Mann as chair would have had the casting vote.

Local resident David Thompson said Cllr Mann has not responded to emails from at least six different people asking why he declined to vote.

He said:

“Residents were gobsmacked that he abstained. How can you not have an opinion on this?

“The fact he’s point-blank ignored our requests to know why he did vote this way is hardly the proper actions of an elected representative”.

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The application has a sensitive history. Harrogate Borough Council initially refused the plans in November 2016. A council document explaining the reason for refusal said it would “lead to an erosion of the rural character” of this part of Harrogate.

The decision was then overturned on appeal despite 37 objections. Many objections claimed the development would have a negative impact on the area.

The Stray Ferret called Cllr Mann but just after we explained what the call was about he said there was a poor reception and the line then went dead.

We called again but he did not answer so we left a message, which has not been returned. The council press office said it was a matter for Mr Mann.

Western Primary School in Harrogate gets second speed sign

Western Primary School in Harrogate has secured a second speed sign as part of its ongoing campaign to improve road safety.

Headteacher Tim Broad has spoken of his fears a child could be killed crossing the busy Cold Bath Road outside the 500-pupil school.

A long-running campaign with parents bore fruit last month when funding was secured for a vehicle-activated sign that notifies drivers of their speed in the 20 miles per hour zone.

Now a second sign means traffic in both directions will be monitored — although as the signs are classed as temporary, they need to be rotated occasionally to meet this bureaucratic requirement.

John Mann, who represents Harrogate central on North Yorkshire County Council, has funded both signs from his locality budget, which councillors are allocated to spend on local issues. Each sign costs £3,200 plus VAT.

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Mr Broad said he was “delighted” the school would receive two signs but added the campaign would go on. He said:

“This will make a huge difference to the safety of our pupils and I am grateful to Councillor Mann for the additional funding which has made this possible.

“Whilst this is a very positive step, I still have significant concerns about the sheer volume of traffic, of all shapes and sizes, which uses Cold Bath Road each day, producing significant pollution which makes its way into our classrooms.

“My long term aim is to work with residents, businesses and the local council to see what steps might be taken to address this additional concern.”

Councillor Mann did not respond to inquiries from the Stray Ferret.

Speed sign to be installed outside Western Primary School

A speed sign is to be installed outside Western Primary School in Harrogate as part of the school’s long-running campaign to improve road safety.

Western is one of the largest primary schools in the Harrogate district, with 500 pupils.

It is also situated on one of the busiest streets — Cold Bath Road.

Tim Broad, headteacher of Western Primary School, has spoken of his fears a child could be killed crossing the road.

He and teachers have lobbied North Yorkshire County Council for action.

The campaign finally bore fruit when John Mann, who represents Harrogate central on North Yorkshire County Council, agreed to fund a vehicle-activated sign from his locality budget.

Each county councillor receives a locality budget of £5,000 per year to spend on local needs, and councillor Mann’s allocation covered the £3,200-plus VAT cost of the sign.

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Mr Broad said the school was “very grateful” to councillor Mann. He added:

“This will make a significant difference to the safety of our pupils and it is a relief to know that somebody is listening to our concerns and taking some positive action.

“However, there is much more that needs to be done and I am hoping we can work with North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council to make the whole of Cold Bath Road a safer and healthier environment for everyone who uses it.”

The sign, which has a five-year warranty and a life expectancy of 10 years, will be fixed to the street lamp immediately outside the school.

A radar in the sign detects vehicles travelling above the 20mph speed limit from at least 50 metres away and this triggers a ‘slow down’ message.

The sign will be spun round every few weeks to face traffic from the opposite direction.