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.
Read more:
- How the Harrogate district’s wards will change ahead of local election
- Full list of election candidates in Harrogate district revealed
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:
‘A costly PR stunt’: calls for an inquiry into Harrogate Nightingale“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.”
A senior politician from Ripon has described the Harrogate Nightingale as a “costly PR stunt”, amid calls for an inquiry.
Lord Newby’s criticism comes after NHS England said this week the hospital, which cost £27 million to set up, would be decommissioned at the end of the month.
It has not treated a single covid patient, prompting calls for an inquiry.
Lord Newby, the Liberal Democrat leader in the House of Lords, who lives in Ripon, said:
“The Nightingales were a costly PR stunt.
“They could never be used as planned because there was never the staffing for them. They were introduced because the government was desperate to be seen to be responding effectively to the pandemic, which at the time looked to be potentially out of control.
“The Harrogate Nightingale should have been closed months ago, in order to avoid the high cost of maintenance and so that Harrogate could begin to plan for its reopening.”
Jim Clark, a Conservative who represents Harrogate Harlow on Harrogate Borough Council, repeated his
call for an inquiry on BBC Look North yesterday.
He told the programme:
“It wasn’t an insurance policy in Harrogate because we didn’t have the staff to man it and I think it’s then been discovered that as soon as it was built it wasn’t essentially fit for purpose.”
The Stray Ferret asked Harrogate and Knaresborough Conservative MP Andrew Jones and Richard Cooper, leader of the Conservative-controlled Harrogate Borough Council whether they supported calls for an inquiry. Neither replied.
Read more:
Asked the same question on Look North, Cllr Cooper said the location of the Nightingale Hospitals was likely to be considered as part of a wider covid inquiry. He added:
“But we’ve been pleased to host the Nightingale and to host the thousands of diagnostic tests that have been carried out there.”
Pat Marsh, leader of the Liberal Democrats on Harrogate Borough Council, supported calls for an inquiry, adding:
“Over a decade of Conservative cuts has led to an NHS operating on a shoestring. Whether there was ever the staff to run such a Nightingale hospital, should it have been toward full capacity, needs to be made clear.”
Margaret Smith, chair of Harrogate and Knaresborough Labour Party, said the Nightingales were “a legitimate insurance policy” in the early days of covid when it seemed hospitals could be overwhelmed. She added:
“There seems little point in wasting any more public money on an inquiry at this stage.”