Pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues will remain closed from today after the Government announced last night would be their last evening of trading for the foreseeable future.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in North Yorkshire has risen by one to 14 – with one death at Harrogate District Hospital.
If you work in the tourism industry or run a hospitality business in the district, please get in touch to tell us how you’re coping with the changes.
4pm – Call for hospital volunteers
Volunteers are urgently needed to help at Harrogate District Hospital across all areas and departments.
Harrogate District NHS Foundation Trust has put a call out for new volunteers as some of its existing team are keeping away during the coronavirus outbreak.
The Trust says volunteers will mostly be working in administrative or manual handling roles, depending on their skills and abilities, supporting the work of staff in caring for patients, carers and visitors.
Anyone interested can email hdft.volunteering@nhs.net.
12pm – Bus timetables revised
The Harrogate Bus company has announced changes to its timetables in order to keep vital services running for essential journeys.
The late night services on the 36 bus between Leeds and Harrogate will not operate from today, long with those on the 1N route. The company will also operate a Saturday service from Monday to Saturday for the foreseeable future, while Sunday timetables will continue as usual.
📣 We’re making some changes to our bus times 📣
Our late night Saturday buses on #the36 & 1N will not run from Sat 21 March.
And from Monday 23 March we’ll be using Saturday times on most routes Mon-Sat.
The X6 will be running as normal.
More here 👉https://t.co/cb5cL0O6iS pic.twitter.com/dNMB3zWR3F
— The Harrogate Bus Company (@harrogatebus) March 20, 2020
CEO Alex Hornby praised his team and said: “We’ve been running all our buses as normal until now but as we see less people travelling and pressure on staffing increases, we have made the decision to change to Saturday times going forward. We trust everyone understands the reasons for this but note that we are maintaining the general span of the operating day and many frequencies are similar.”
11.45am – Antiques fair postponed
The Antiques and Collectors Fair due to be held at Ripley over Easter weekend has been postponed.
It adds to the long list of cancellations and postponements of events across the Harrogate district. Many organisers are hoping to find new dates later in the year, based on government guidance at the time.
11am – Instant payments to county council suppliers
Businesses which supply to North Yorkshire County Council will receive immediate payments as the authority works to mitigate the effects of coronavirus on the economy.
Small and medium suppliers will receive instant payment – subject to bank clearing times – instead of the current 30-day period. The Council is currently planning to have the new payment rules in place until the end of 2020, subject to a review in August.
County Council leader Coun Carl Les said: “We are clear how important our supply chains are to our service delivery, and we want to be there for the smaller businesses that supply us and are crucial to the economic vitality of our county and country.
“We will be doing our best to support them through this period, and in addition would urge them to seek the wider support available from central government.”