North Yorkshire Council looks set to make three former district council managers redundant at a cost of £513,700.

The council, which replaced Harrogate Borough Council and seven other district and county councils at the start of the month, is restructuring its workforce.

According to a report due before the authority’s executive, senior managers who were transferred to the council under TUPE regulations can be offered “substitute duties” which fit their job descriptions.

Some senior staff left for other jobs before the authority was formed, while others took up roles on the new council.

However, three of the senior managers are due to be made redundant after the roles they were allocated were “time-limited”.

The report said:

“There are three senior managers where the substitute duties allocated are time-limited, and on conclusion they will be in a redundancy position.

“Legal advice has been sought and confirms this position.”

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As a result, the council looks set to pay an estimated £513,700 in exit packages to those being made redundant.

None of the officers are former employees of Harrogate Borough Council.

The payments will be split by £107,000, £108,000 and £298,000.

Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire Council, said the move to one council has helped to save £3.7 million in senior officers’ pay.

He said:

“A huge amount of work has been undertaken to bring together the previous eight councils into one and ensure that there is value for money for North Yorkshire’s taxpayers. 

“The move to one single management team for North Yorkshire Council has saved about £3.7 million in pay for senior officers every year. The fact that there are only three senior managers in this situation is significantly less than other councils in this position. 

“To have these managers still involved for a defined period has been of significant benefit to the new council, making full use of their skills and experience for work that would otherwise have needed extra resources in terms of appointments, interim managers or consultants.”

A meeting of the council’s executive is set to discuss the matter on Tuesday, May 2. Senior councillors have been recommended to refer the matter to full council.

In December, Unison wrote to the authority warning it not to offer senior managers more favourable redundancy terms than other staff.

The letter came as Hambleton District Council agreed to pay £767,065 to four senior officers who decided they do not wish to work for the unitary North Yorkshire Council after April 1.

The payments were agreed even though the four directors had been assured they would be offered “suitable roles” at no financial loss to themselves when they transferred to North Yorkshire Council.

Former Harrogate Borough Council chief executive Wallace Sampson negotiated a £101,274 redundancy pay-out before his departure at the end of March.

Staff who previously worked for some of the county’s abolished district councils are now working at Harrogate’s Civic Centre.

The building on St Luke’s Avenue was the headquarters of Harrogate Borough Council until March 31 when it was abolished to make way for the unitary authority North Yorkshire Council.

Councils for Hambleton, Craven, Scarborough, Richmond, Selby, Ryedale, plus North Yorkshire County Council, were also abolished.

One of the big questions about local government reorganisation was what would happen to the Civic Centre which only opened in 2017.

To help pay for the build, the council’s old offices at Crescent Gardens were eventually sold to developer Impala Estates for £4m.

Reorganisation had been mooted for many years and when the council decided to make the move, critics said the project could become a white elephant in the event of Harrogate Borough Council no longer existing.

Read more:

• Liberal Democrats back creation of Harrogate town council
• Have your say on new development plan for Pannal and Burn Bridge

However, North Yorkshire Council’s Conservative leader Carl Les has reaffirmed his commitment to using the building and said it would not be sold as the authority looks to save money.

When asked how many staff are currently working at the Civic Centre, Cllr Les said:

“The number of staff using the Civic Centre on a day-by-day basis does vary, so it is difficult to provide an exact figure. However, staff who were previously employed by other councils in North Yorkshire before the new authority launched have been regularly working from the Civic Centre.

“We will be looking to rationalise the property estate which the new council has inherited. 

“However, we will retain the Civic Centre and look to focus more staff on using it as a base as the property rationalisation rolls out.”

Cllr Les said each former district area will retain one main office, which will be supported by around 30 “customer access points” in places like libraries.

He added: 

“The main office enables you to continue to access all the support, advice and services you always have, but now all from one council. More than 80% of our staff live in North Yorkshire and take pride in delivering good services for their communities, families and friends.”

As Harrogate Borough Council draws to a close, the move to scrap the authority also sees 24 councillors lose their roles.

The brand new North Yorkshire Council will have 16 elected representatives from the Harrogate district.

However, only 12 of those councillors will move on from seats on the borough council.

Some have successfully sought reelection to the new council.

Among those stepping down include council leader, Cllr Richard Cooper, and deputy leader of the authority, Cllr Graham Swift.

Members of the cabinet Cllr Phil Ireland and Cllr Stanley Lumley have also departed.

In this article, we take a look at the 24 councillors who will no longer represent the district.

Rebecca Burnett

The former chairman of Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee.

She represented Harrogate St Georges since 2018. 

Trevor Chapman

Mayor Trevor Chapman and wife Janet

Cllr Chapman, who represented Harrogate Bilton Grange, was mayor of the Harrogate borough last year.

The Liberal Democrat was on the council since 2018.

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• Explained: What happens to bin collections in Harrogate after devolution?
• Explained: Who will make planning decisions in Harrogate district after devolution?

Richard Cooper

Leader of the council since 2014, Conservative Cllr Cooper represented Harrogate central on the authority.

He announced in October 2021 that he would not seek election to North Yorkshire Council.

Ed Darling

Conservative Cllr Darling was chair of the licensing committee on Harrogate Borough Council and represented Knaresborough Castle ward.

John Ennis

John Ennis, Conservative.

Cllr Ennis, a Conservative, represented the Harrogate Stray ward on the authority.

Sam Green

Sam Green, who was the youngest councillor on Harrogate Borough Council.

Cllr Green, who was only elected in May last year, was the youngest borough councillor at 26-years-old.

He was elected to the Wathvale ward on the council.

Sid Hawke

Cllr Hawke was one of two Ripon Independent councillors on the borough council.

Phil Ireland

Conservative Cllr Ireland was one the authority’s cabinet. He held the carbon reduction and sustainability portfolio.

He also represented Knaresborough Aspin and Calcutt ward.

Steven Jackson

Cllr Jackson was a Conservative councillor who represented the Harrogate Saltergate ward on the council.

Sue Lumby

Cllr Lumby was the Conservative councillor for Harrogate Coppice Valley. She also chaired the council’s human resource committee.

Stanley Lumley

Councillor Stanley Lumley (pictured left)

Conservative Cllr Lumley was the authority’s cabinet member for culture, tourism and sport and oversaw the creation of Brimhams Active, which now runs council leisure centres.

He unsuccessfully stood for election to the new North Yorkshire Council. He also represented Pateley Bridge and Nidderdale on the borough council.

Stuart Martin

Conservative Cllr Martin was mayor of Harrogate borough in 2020.

He represented Ripon Moorside on the authority.

Pauline McHardy

Cllr McHardy, who represented Ripon Minster, was a Ripon Independent on the borough council.

Nigel Middlemass

Cllr Middlemass was a Conservative councillor who represented Harrogate Kingsley ward.

Ann Myatt

Conservative Cllr Myatt represented Ouseburn ward on the borough council.

Tim Myatt

Cllr Myatt was part of the council’s cabinet and held the portfolio for planning.

He also represented Harrogate High ward.

Victoria Oldham

Conservative Cllr Oldham is the current mayor of the Harrogate borough. She chaired full council meetings this year.

She also represented Washburn ward.

Alex Raubitschek

Cllr Raubitschek was a Conservative councillor who represented Oatlands ward.

Matt Scott

Conservative Cllr Scott represented Harrogate Bilton Woodfield on the borough council and chaired the authority’s general purposes committee.

Nigel Simms

Cllr Simms, who represented Masham and Kirkby Malzeard, was vice-chair of the council’s planning committee.

Graham Swift

Conservative deputy leader of the council and portfolio holder for resources, enterprise and economic development, Cllr Swift was among the senior councillors on the authority.

He unsuccessfully stood for election to North Yorkshire Council. He also represented the Duchy ward on the borough council.

Tom Watson

Liberal Democrat Cllr Tom Watson represented Nidd Valley on the borough council.

Matthew Webber

Cllr Webber, who was a Liberal Democrat, represented New Park on the authority.

Christine Willoughby

Liberal Democrat Cllr Willoughby sat on the council for Knaresborough Eastfield.

The new leaders of North Yorkshire Council have said making £252 million worth of savings in the next five years as part of local government reorganisation has become “massively tougher”.

Chief executive Richard Flinton and the authority’s political leader, Cllr Carl Les, said almost two years after using large-scale savings as a key plank in its case for creating a single unitary authority for North Yorkshire that “the world is in a different place”.

In 2021, auditors’ analysis of the county council’s unitary found it could save £30m a year by cutting red tape and reducing senior management and elected member costs.

In addition, by using the new council as a springboard for change, the auditors concluded savings could rise to between £50m and £67m a year, netting up to £252m at the end of the first five years, saving of up to £185 a year for households.

However, on the eve of the new authority launching, Mr Flinton said the council was instead looking at needing to cut £70m over the next three years just to balance its books and achieving savings had become “massively tougher”.

He said: 

“Since those predictions were first made the councils have made a lot of savings themselves that would have been in that territory.

“Lots of demand pressures have changed. Austerity has come around the cost of living pressures, the price we are paying for things has increased massively.

“The world is a different place from two years ago where people were making projections using consultants around the art of the possible. The reality against more people having problems looking after kids, more people presenting wanting adult social care, more of the housing challenges such as mould, the world doesn’t stand still.

“Against that backdrop we’re saying we need to save £70m over the next three years. We are going to be honest with people and say that’s not going to be a breeze.”

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The county council has stripped £200m from its annual spending since austerity hit in 2010, partly by relying on volunteers to help run services such as public libraries.

Mr Flinton said: 

“As we come under more and more financial stress that type of innovative dealing with the public is probably going to be more and more.”

“One of the new unitary council’s early cost-cutting programmes will be to sell some of the former district, borough and county council properties, which equate to more than 3,500 bits of property excluding schools.”

When selling the properties Mr Flinton said the council would have regard to the interests of the community and in some cases the property could be used in a regeneration scheme, but in the majority of cases it would be “good old fashioned case back into the bank and value for money.”

The incoming council aims to bolster its online offer, but has pledged face to face contact with residents would continue with a council office kept in each of the former district areas.

Cllr Les said: 

“As soon as we put any one of those properties up for closure you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a campaign to save it.”

Harrogate Borough Council will be abolished at the end of today after 49 years of existence.

The council, along with six other district councils and North Yorkshire County Council, will be replaced by North Yorkshire Council from April 1.

The move comes as part of the biggest shake-up in local government since 1974.

It means North Yorkshire Council, which will employ 11,500 staff, will be responsible for all council services in the district, including bin collections, planning, licensing and highways.

The change will also see the district represented by 16 councillors, instead of the current 40 on the borough council plus more on the county council.

Among those councillors stepping down are Richard Cooper and Graham Swift, the leader and deputy leader of Harrogate Borough Council respectively.

‘We will be locally-based’

The new leaders of the unitary council have pledged the new authority will be local, despite being based in Northallerton.

Speaking ahead of the takeover, Richard Flinton, the new chief executive of the council, defended the authority from criticism that it was too remote.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service:

“We will have locally-based managers who have a strong understanding of the issues in their areas.”

The authority’s leadership says while one safeguard against parochialism on the new authority would be in its executive members representing communities from across the county, another is by retaining its headquarters in Northallerton.

Richard Flinton, chief executive of North Yorkshire Council.

Mr Flinton said: 

“If our headquarters was in Harrogate or Scarborough then there might be more of a concern that we would be focused on that as the council view of the world. 

“Being in a fairly modest market town mitigates against that.”

Meanwhile, Cllr Carl Les, the Conservative leader of the new council, defended the decision to create 90 councillors to cover the entire county – rather than the current number of 319 which cover different councils.

He said:

“Representation by numbers doesn’t work. What matters is if you’ve got energetic people in the cohort of 90. The great benefit of reducing from 319 is that we have saved £750,000.

“I think we’ve got enough members to represent the people and continue the political process. You don’t have to go to a parish meeting to understand what’s happening in that parish.”

Read more:

• Explained: What happens to bin collections in Harrogate after devolution?
• Explained: Who will make planning decisions in Harrogate district after devolution?

With Harrogate Borough Council in its final days, the Local Democracy Reporting Service looked at five major moments that defined it.

From controversy over the Harrogate conference centre to the move from Crescent Gardens to the Civic Centre — the council has played a major role in the look, feel and development of the district for the last 49 years.

As well as searching the archives of the Harrogate Advertiser, we spoke to some of the people who were involved at the time to give a picture of how these five events unfolded.

1974: Dawn of a new council

Harrogate Borough Council was new and shiny once.

Its creation followed years of wrangling over boundaries. At one point, it looked like Harrogate and Knaresborough was even going to be incorporated into a Leeds council.

But the new two-tier system was launched at midnight on April 12, 1974 and it saw North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council share responsibilities in the newly-created Harrogate district.

Old rural councils as well as the councils for Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough were brought together to form Harrogate Borough Council and it put the town of Harrogate at the heart of decision-making in the district.

On April 6, 1974, the Harrogate Advertiser described “the great changeover”:

“At midnight on Sunday, local government old-style ended and the new style has given Harrogate and a huge surrounding area of 515 square miles a new district council, by which the council of the borough of Harrogate came into full operation and responsibility.”

When the council launched, it owned 7,000 council houses, almost double what it owns today, and it served a population of 135,000 residents.

Conservative councillor for Burton Leonard, Graham Bott, became the first mayor of the borough at a ceremony at the Royal Hall that month.

Cllr Bott described becoming mayor as one of the proudest moments of his life.

He said he hoped Harrogate Borough Council would abide by the motto of the Three Musketeers — “one for all and all for one.”

Crescent Gardens.

Sixty councillors were elected to serve on the first council and they were paid £10 to attend meetings that lasted over 4 hours, which dropped to £5 for shorter ones.

The council’s first chief executive was Neville Knox. He said the council’s size meant it would still be in touch with residents.

Mr Knox said:

“We are still small enough not to have lost contact with the rate payers. We have experienced officers in the branch who know the people of their areas.”

But even in the council’s formative days, questions were being asked about how the council in Harrogate would look upon the rest of the district.

A Harrogate Advertiser columnist from Ripon asked, “Is big brother Harrogate going to grab all the goodies for itself?”

It said: 

“One fear is that the natural and historic assets of Harrogate’s neighbours will be used not so much to their own advantage but primarily as additional bait to enhance the attraction of the main centre and Harrogate as a tourist, trade fair and conference centre.”

This received a firm rebuttal from Tony Bryant, the council’s director of conference and resort services, whose comments draw parallels with what is being said by officials at North Yorkshire Council 49 years later.

Mr Bryant said: 

“We shall no longer be a collection of small authorities trying with limited resources to sell itself, but a large body in which finance will be combined for the common good.”

There was much work to be done and the Harrogate Advertiser wrote in an editorial that the council “cannot afford the luxury of taking time to settle in” as there were huge traffic problems, car parks and the construction of new roads that had to be dealt with.

But a squabble over ceremonial robes dominated the council’s first meeting.

Councillors who had served on the old Ripon and Harrogate councils had the right to continue to wear their ceremonial robes at meetings on the new council.

However, Knaresborough councillor W Macintyre wanted to restrict this to just the mayor and deputy mayor as he said wearing robes would be “anachronistic” in the context of the newly formed council. His proposal failed by 18 votes to 29.

Although Liberal councillor for Granby, John Marshall, said that just because members in Ripon and Harrogate wore robes it did not mean they liked the custom.

He said he found the practice “acutely embarrasing”.

1982: the conference centre opens under a cloud

The story of Harrogate Borough Council will be forever bound to the town’s conference centre.

The venture was undoubtably the council’s boldest move but it’s fair to say that controversy has dogged what is now the Harrogate Convention Centre ever since the council decided to build it in the 1970s.

Harrogate was already known as a conference destination but the council hoped a new state-of-the-art facility in the centre of town would attract business and leisure visitors to the district for decades to come.

Harrogate Borough Council part-funded the investment through selling land it owned off Skipton Road to housebuilders. This would eventually lead to the building of much-needed new homes for Harrogate and the creation of the sprawling Jennyfields estate.

Read more:

• Explained: Who will make planning decisions in Harrogate district after devolution?
• Explained: What happens to bin collections in Harrogate after devolution?

However, in 1979 when construction on the conference centre was underway, the UK was in the grip of a deep recession and Margaret Thatcher’s newly elected Conservative government raised the interest rate to 17%, in a bid to bring down inflation that was running at 13%.

Tim Flanagan was chief reporter at the Harrogate Advertiser during the 1970s and 1980s. He remembers the conference centre was rarely off the front pages during that time.

Mr Flanagan said costs for the conference centre spiralled from an initial £8m to £34m, which shocked the Harrogate public and led to a hike in council tax.

He said:

“Against the backdrop of recession, inflation and high interest rates, the council’s finances were stretched to the limit.

“This led it to it to make the decision to levy a supplementary rate to balance the books – a move that proved highly unpopular with ratepayers across the district.”

Harrogate Borough Council was bailed out by a £16m loan from the government to pay off the conference centre. It reduced what residents would have been asked to pay in council tax by 25%.

If the 40-year terms of the loan were followed, it means the council only finished paying back the government for the bailout last year.

Resident John Wynne would write to the Advertiser in 1982 that the conference centre saga had sullied his once-romantic view of Harrogate.

“I’m afraid the fiasco over the conference centre and sucessive high rate increases to pay for the thing have completely killed all the feelings I had for this town.”

Problems at the conference centre would mount throughout the 1980s as the hotel group originally chosen to be part of the development pulled out and it took until 1985 for what is now the Crown Plaza to be occupied.

The conference centre had become such a drain on resources that the council struggled to maintain prized assets such as the Sun Pavilion and Harrogate Theatre as they fell into disprepair.

Binmen were even asked to reduce their hours to save costs.

Eurovision 1982 held in Harrogate.

However, despite the controversies, what is now known as the Harrogate Convention Centre has been a cornerstone of the town’s economy for the last 40 years.

It will also always have its place in UK pop culture history after it hosted the Eurovision song contest in the venue’s first year.

The contest was eventually won by German singer Nicole and saw Harrogate showcased to hundreds of millions across the world.

Although a furious letter in the Harrogate Advertiser by resident JR Myers criticised the council for not selling tickets to the Harrogate public. He said instead, it gave them away to dignitaries and officials.

Mr Myers said this “reflects the cavalier way in which the ratepayers are treated” by the council.

Although in the same letter he also described the song contest as a “nauseating and mindless spectacle”, casting doubt on his claim that he really wanted a ticket in the first place.

We will feature the second part of this article on the Stray Ferret tomorrow

A Ripon councillor has strongly criticised Harrogate Borough Council after an officer confirmed a report costing £85,000 that was supposed to present a new vision for Ripon city centre remains unfinished — over two-and-a-half years since it was first announced.

At a meeting of the Skipton and Ripon area constituency committee yesterday in Skipton, officers at North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council spoke to councillors about the economic opportunities for Ripon ahead of the new council forming on April 1.

But it was the current status of the Ripon Renewal Project masterplan that Ripon councillors Andrew Williams and Barbara Brodigan were seeking answers to.

Harrogate Borough Council awarded a contract to Bauman Lyons Architects in 2020 to draw up a vision for the future of the city.

The company was tasked with producing funding options and a business case for Ripon to bid for money for regeneration projects.

A consultation was held in 2021 when residents, businesses and community groups highlighted problems in the city. These included not enough things for young people to do, traffic in the market place and a lack of affordable housing.

However, publication of the document has been beset by delays, which led Cllr Brodigan to accuse the council of letting it “gather dust” at an office in Harrogate.

Ripon City Council and Ripon BID have submitted freedom of information requests to HBC in an attempt to find out what has been produced.

The project is being co-funded by North Yorkshire County Council and the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

‘No draft masterplan’

The borough council’s acting head of place-shaping and economic growth Linda Marfitt told councillors the project was initially delayed due to the consultation exercises taking longer than expected.

She said the council then tried to extend the contract with the architect but were not able to come to an agreement so had to “bring the commission to a close”.

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Ms Marfitt said despite the council not being in possession of a draft masterplan, officers have looked at what work has been done so far and will present a summary to councillors next week.

She added around £55,000 of the £85,000 that was earmarked had been spent.

Ms Marfitt said:

“It isn’t something that sits on a shelf, we’re proactively moving it forward. We’re working with the new council to see what can be done. There will be an update next week. I do apologise for the elongated time frame but we were trying to get a successful outcome.”

It was a response that exacerbated Andrew Williams, independent councillor for Ripon Minster & Moorside and the leader of Ripon City Council. 

He said:

“It’s astonishing that we’ve spent £85,000 of public money to get nothing, not even a draft executive summary from a consultant — that’s how bad this is.

“A lot of time has spent on this by organisations in the city but it’s fallen off a cliff-edge. It’s an absolute nonsense.”

A spokesperson for Bauman Lyons Architects issued the following statement:

“Following a positive and helpful period of community and stakeholder engagement, the initial stages of the project took longer than envisaged. This meant it was necessary for the council and Bauman Lyons Architects to enter into discussions about a new contract to complete the work. 

“An agreement on the terms could not be reached and the commission has now come to a close.”

Harrogate Borough Council will write-off over £83,000 of debt it’s owed from businesses, residents and housing tenants.

Cllr Graham Swift, the council’s cabinet member for resources, enterprise and economic development, approved two reports that said the debts would be “uneconomic to pursue further.”

The first report includes details of £44,167 worth of miscellaneous debt with the largest being two Harrogate Convention Centre invoices from Kerrison Craft Exhibitions Ltd worth £19,940.

The report says the exhibitions firm has been wound up and “there is little hope of any remuneration”.

The company was due to organise The British Craft Trade Fair (BCTF) and British Craft & Design Fair at the convention centre until 2025.

A Harrogate Borough Council spokesperson said the event owner affiliated to Kerrison Craft Exhibitions Ltd has died.

Paula Lorimer, director of Harrogate Convention Centre, said:

“We are deeply saddened by the untimely death of the event organiser. We are hopeful the event will be purchased by an alternative organiser in the future.”

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The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted the company’s liquidator, Opus LLP but it declined to make a comment.

Of the £44,167, there is also £3,717 worth of debt related to planning and £3,854 to waste and recycling.

The council will be able to recover £6,460.94 in VAT.

The report explains why HBC has decided not to pursue these debts any further:

“The costs involved are too great, the probability of success is too slim or there are simply no further legal options available.”

Meanwhile, a second report was approved by Cllr Swift related to writing-off £39,059.11 from former council housing tenants.

However, it says the ‘substantial majority’ of this sum will be written-off because the tenant has died.

Although the report adds that some debts are from tenants who “abandoned their homes and remain untraceable.”

Every month the Stray Ferret tries to find out what our local MPs have been up to in their constituencies and in the House of Commons.

In February, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a speech to MPs in the lead up to the first anniversary of the war with Russia. Major decisions were made on Kex Gill and Ripon Barracks. Meanwhile, concern was once again raised about sewage into rivers.

We asked Harrogate & Knaresborough MP, Andrew Jones, Ripon MP Julian Smith, and Selby and Ainsty MP Nigel Adams if they would like to highlight anything in particular, but we did not receive a response from any of them.

Here is what we know after analysing their online presence.

Andrew Jones, Harrogate and Knaresborough MP.

In Harrogate and Knaresborough, here is what we found on Mr Jones:

• On February 3, Andrew Jones visited Windsor House in Harrogate, which recently has undergone refurbishment.
• Mr Jones wrote to North Yorkshire Police chief constable, Lisa Winward, following a crash on Yew Tree Lane which saw two teenagers seriously injured. He called for traffic calming measures in the Pannal Ash area.
• He called for a debate in Parliament over access to grassroots sport after meeting with the Football Foundation and Pannal Ash Junior Football Club.
• Mr Jones urged greater cooperation between developers on February 10 after residents raised concerns over unfinished road surfaces, poor drainage and inadequate street lighting on new estates.
• On February 16, Mr Jones described criticism of his voting record on sewage as “ridiculous”. His comments came as concern was raised over the overflow of sewage into rivers.
• On February 27, Mr Jones asked ministers in the House of Commons what more could be done to remove barriers for adults deciding to restudy and update their skills.

Read more:

• MPs Watch: A new Prime Minister and government U-turns
• MPs Watch: ‘Wrong’ tax cuts and the death of the Queen

Julian Smith, MP for Ripon and Skipton.

In Ripon, here is what we found on Mr Smith:

• Mr Smith met with teachers from the UK parliament teacher ambassador programme on February 3.
• On February 8, Mr Smith attended a talk in Westminster Hall speech by Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mr Smith described him as “the ultimate war leader”.
• On the same day, Mr Smith published a letter from the Ministry of Defence confirming that Claro Barracks in Ripon will remain operational until later 2026. Part of the barracks are subject to planning permission for new housing.
• Mr Smith made one spoken contribution in the House of Commons in February on the Northern Ireland protocol. He paid tribute to John Caldwell who was shot in Omagh.
• On February 23, Mr Smith welcomed the government’s decision to approve a final business case for the A59 Kex Gill realignment.

Nigel Adams, MP for Selby and Ainsty which includes rural Harrogate.

In rural south Harrogate, he is what we found on Mr Adams:

• On February 7, Mr Adams described the appointment of Lee Anderson MP as the new Conservative Party chairman as a “clever appointment” by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
• Mr Adams tweeted on February 8 that planes should be supplied to Ukraine after a speech by President Zelenskyy
• Mr Adams posted no new updates on his website in February.
• He made no spoken contributions in the House of Commons during February.

Councils have pushed forward a move to transfer some central government powers to York and North Yorkshire, despite cross-party concerns York’s residents will gain more than the county’s.

Less than 24 hours after City of York Council gave its seal of approval to sending the results of a public consultation over a proposed devolution deal for the city and North Yorkshire, the majority of councillors on its Northallerton-based counterpart followed suit.

While the deal seeks to fuse the futures of the two councils, numerous North Yorkshire councillors underlined their view that York’s 200,000 residents would be the winners in a mayoral combined authority with just two councillors from each authority.

During a lengthy debate on the devolution deal during a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council, numerous councillors attacked proposals to hand a disproportionate amount of power to York.

Many councillors agreed that the deal was far from perfect, but there was little option than to agree to it if the area wanted extra money from the government.

The authority’s leader, Cllr Carl Les, said the deal on the table was “just the start” of negotiations with the government to hand more decision-making powers and funds directly to the area.

He said: 

“We have got to move on. The past is the past, this is the future. This is how government prefers to work. And if we negate that we are going to lose out yet again.”

Cllr Carl Les, leader of North Yorkshire County Council.

Cllr Les said the deal would help avoid bidding wars, by moving decision-making out of Whitehall to York and Northallerton, there would also be safeguards in place on the mayoral combined authority to protect the interests of both councils’ populations.

However, opposition councillors said the deal would lead to decision-making becoming more concentrated in a small group of unelected people on the combined authority.

Green group leader Cllr Andy Brown said the authority was being offered “crumbs not substance” following decades of the government stripping back funding for County Hall, so the deal was “more propaganda than reality”.

Cllr Stuart Parsons, Independents group leader, said of the £18m extra annual government funding the deal would bring, up to £4m would be spent on staffing the mayor’s office.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Bryn Griffiths said the mayor’s office would be “yet another layer of bureaucracy to be funded by the poor taxpayers”.

Read more:

• County council to set up new estates company
• Double devolution could be ‘fundamental gamechanger’ for Knaresborough, says councillor
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Labour group leader Cllr Steve Shaw Wright said devolution would happen whether people in North Yorkshire wanted it or not, while Craven District Council leader Richard Foster said branded the deal was “York-centric”.

Ripon Cllr Andrew Williams said York was a “basket case of a council that the poor residents in York have to suffer” and that many people in York would like to see it abolished and being a part of a wider North Yorkshire.

He told the meeting: 

“It is a local authority, quite frankly, which fails the people of York every day it opens its doors for business.”

Seamer division member Cllr Heather Phillips was among few councillors who expressed any solidarity with York.

She said: 

“York, we welcome you. We want to work with you and we’ll be a better North Yorkshire when we do that.”