Harrogate Tory leader attacks Lib Dems for using Dundee printers

The leader of Conservative-run Harrogate Borough Council has attacked the local Liberal Democrats for using a firm in Dundee to print a leaflet urging people to ‘buy local’.

Richard Cooper criticised the move in a post on the Community News website run by Andrew Jones, the Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough. Cllr Cooper is employed by Mr Jones as his office manager,

It is a sign that the North Yorkshire Council election campaign is hotting up ahead of the vote on May 5.

Mr Cooper said it was “critical that we use local businesses where we can”.

According to the post, other local Liberal Democrat literature has been printed in York and Chesterfield.

Cllr Cooper said:

“It is critical that we use local businesses where we can and there are a lot of good local printers who would have wanted this business.

“It really is strange to call on others to ‘buy local’ when you are buying from York, Chesterfield and even Dundee!”.

Cllr Cooper, who has said he will not be seeking re-election next month, also said the leaflet’s ‘greener’ agenda was at odds with its creation.

Carbon footprint

He said:

“Even if they didn’t want to use local printers for some reason was it really necessary to go 60-odd miles north of Edinburgh? The carbon footprint of their literature is enormous.

“When you tell people you want to ‘buy local’ and ‘be greener’ you have to match your actions with words.”

The post said all election campaign leaflets published by Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservatives were printed in Harrogate and Mr Jones’ annual reports were printed in Knaresborough.

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Pat Marsh, leader of Harrogate and Knaresborough Liberal Democrats, told the Stray Ferret that the Conservatives “should really have bigger things to be worrying about than where we print our material”, such as spiralling energy bills, the fallout of war in Ukraine and “businesses feeling the bite of Brexit”.

Cllr Marsh added:

“This is a particularly strange attack from the Conservatives who, during the pandemic, took £10,000 of grants to pay for their office.

“We think these grants should have been used to support local businesses, not on political party campaigns. Since they print a lot of their material at their office many people will be questioning whether their taxpayers money is helping to fund Conservative election leaflets.”

She added that the Liberal Democrats’ process for using outside suppliers was to “try and get the best value for money”, which was “something Conservative-run Harrogate council could learn from”, adding:

“They spent £5,000 on a giant snow globe that was displayed in London for two days over Christmas and £700 on social media influencers. This is on top of the £13 million they wasted on a council office for a council their own government is abolishing.”

 

‘Time to hand Harrogate Nightingale back to council’

One of the Harrogate district’s most senior politicians has said the time has come to accept the Harrogate Nightingale hospital will never be used for covid and handed back.

Lord Newby, the Liberal Democrats leader in the House of Lords, said the NHS should let Harrogate District Council take back control of the building.

Lord Newby spoke to the Stray Ferret after receiving what he described as “non answers” to a series of questions he submitted to the government about staffing and bed capacity at the Nightingales in Harrogate, Sunderland and Manchester.

He asked how many nurses were required and was told by the Conservative peer Lord Bethell that “each Nightingale team has been developing a clinical model that can be scaled up as and when additional capacity is required in the region”.

Lord Newby said last month he doubted the Harrogate Nightingale had the staff to fully open and has now said:

“The only conclusions which one can draw are that the NHS has no firm plans to staff up the Harrogate Nightingale.

“If it were ever to be used for covid patients, it would obviously have to be staffed by existing staff now working in regional hospitals – all of which are already stretched – and cannot easily release doctors and nurses..

“I do not therefore believe that the facility in Harrogate will ever be used for covid and that the government should now accept this reality and hand the site back to the council.”

‘Flawed concept’

The government has described the Nightingales as “insurance policies”. But with the peak of the second wave of the pandemic believed to have passed, and a vaccine on its way, the chances of them being used have receded.

Lord Newby said the concept of using the Nightingale was “flawed from the start”. He added:

“The government should instead have looked at ways in which it could have freed up facilities in existing NHS facilities to allow for greater intake of covid patients, if this had been required.”

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The Stray Ferret has requested interviews with the NHS about the Harrogate Nightingale, which was set up to treat covid patients in Yorkshire and the Humber, on numerous occasions but so far has not received one.

A spokesperson for the hospital said in a statement:

“The NHS Nightingale Yorkshire and the Humber is getting ready to care for patients should it be needed and has been operating a clinical imaging service since June to support local trusts in delivering diagnostic and surveillance CT scans, with more than 3,000 patients having now been seen at the clinic.”

Lord Newby replied:

“‘Getting ready’ is very different from ‘being ready’. The fact they’ve got a scanner there is irrelevant. The are plenty of other sites in Yorkshire where they could have put this.”