Graveleys fish and chip shop in Harrogate served its first customers in more than 1,000 days today.

Owner Simon Pilkington was in town to oversee the reopening of the Harrogate institution, which appeared to have gone for good when it was sold in November 2019.

The takeaway is currently open five days a week and Mr Pilkington said he hoped the restaurant would return in about three weeks, but certainly by Easter, which he said was the trade’s busiest time of year. He said:

“It’s great to be back. My dad would have been elated today to see this if he was still alive.

“Being here has reminded me of all the good times, such as the Great Yorkshire Show week, when we were always absolutely rammed.”

Mr Pilkington said his family had no intention of selling Graveleys until Catch Seafood made an offer.

When Catch went into liquidation last year, the opportunity to return to the same site on Cheltenham Parade proved too tempting for him and his brother Andrew, who own other restaurants elsewhere.

Manager Sarah Knox holds a portion of chips.

Mr Pilkington reiterated the pledge made by manager Sarah Knox yesterday to go “back to basics”, adding:

“We will focus on providing quality fish and chips and then add some seafood delights depending on the feedback.

“Every day is a learning day. We will listen to what customers tell us and go with what they want.”

The takeaway menu includes fish and chips — either cod or haddock — for £9. The takeaway also sells a range of other fish and seafood, including squid, plus other chip shop basics, such as battered sausages and chicken nuggets.

One of today’s first customers

Read more:

• Graveley’s fish and chip shop to reopen in Harrogate tomorrow
• Harrogate’s former Graveley’s fish and chip restaurant closes

The Ship Inn will re-open its doors tomorrow, after a fire damaged the pub last October.

The fire, at the pub in Aldborough, was started by a washing machine and caused extensive damage. The restoration has cost £500,000 and the pub is now larger with enough seating to accommodate up to 200 people inside and outdoors.

Brian Rey and Elaine Howden, the owners of The Ship Inn, have been restoring the pub since January.

Brian said:

“It’s been amazing the response we’ve had from the community and our staff. We had 16 staff members and they all wanted to stay on, which I have to say was quite moving.

“We now can seat around 200 people throughout the garden and pub. We now have wi-fi outside and a second card machine to bring outside. We’ve also now bought a new pizza oven.”

Last October, the pub set on fire through an electrical fault with a washing machine. The emergency services were called when a fire alarm sounded at 2am.

Brian spoke about his experience when the pub set alight. He said:

“It was hardly believable, I thought I was hallucinating. When we called 999, five fire engines turned up. We were told that if we ingested smoke for another ten minutes we wouldn’t be here today.

The store room after the fire

“We just stuck some face masks on and I knew we needed to get out of there.

“After the fire, we had no heating so we spent a lot of time in bed, simply to get warm. We had one electric heater plugged in and that’s it.”

Read more:

• New Harrogate pub opens tomorrow
• Ripon pub set to unveil new £170,000 renovations

Brian and Elaine have seen many high-profile guests to their pubs, including Prince William and Harry, as well as Gordon Ramsay.

The couple’s old pub, The Fenwick Arms, was featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in 2006. In the episode Gordon said he had ‘a lot of respect’ for Brian, as well as claiming that their Yorkshire puddings were ‘excellent.’

The episode led Gordon and Brian to set up a ‘Real Gravy’ campaign, which was created to promote Brian’s gravy and Sunday roast.

“I’ve had five million emails about the Real Gravy campaign and I’ll never be able to get through all of them,” Brian said.

Knaresborough market re-opened with more stalls this morning. Coronavirus meant only essential stalls such as food stalls opened during the pandemic, but from today a further range of stalls opened.

The market has clear safety measures in place and encourages socially distanced queues in front of all of its stalls. Visitors were keen to resume their regular shopping habits and supporting the local traders.

In previous weeks, 12 essentials stalls opened on average but today saw that number more than double. This was due to extra stalls being allowed to return such as those selling clothing and electronics.

John Alexander, runs a card and gift wrap stall on the market, he said:

“From today, I’ve got about a third less space, so that equates to a third of the takings. But I still have the same overheads, so I’ll see what happens. But there’s a lot [of other traders] here that are the same and we have to find a way to make the business viable. So I hope it works. I’ve been here 25 years so its a big change but I understand. People will return once they get the hang of it. I would say the majority of our customers are elderly ladies so we just have to be careful, but the market has made a real effort to keep everyone safe.”

Visitors were keen to return to the market this morning, but the traders are aware safety has to be a priority.

Read more: 

• Harrogate’s retailers prepare to fight for survival as their doors re-open next week. 
• The desire to support local businesses is clear as farm shops see a rise in customers during lockdown. 

Another market trader Andrew Sutcliffe, runs a women’s clothes stall and is pleased to have returned this morning. He told The Stray Ferret:

“I mean I’m normally always here, my family have been here for 80 years. But I had to move slightly so there’s enough room between the stall and the shop door. I’m hopeful for sales, I’ve had a few already this morning but its still early. I’ve found its actually a bit busier than I thought it would be and I think people are more likely to shop outside anyway. We could do alright from this or we may not, its just a waiting game. “

Less than a half of dentist practices in the region will open today despite the lifting of restrictions- many only providing a skeleton service.

However the British Dental Association (BDA) have conducted a poll which reported that only 42% of Yorkshire’s dentists will re-open.

Amongst those opening is Swan Dental Practice in Harrogate, their principal dentist Richard Bannister said:

“We won’t be running a full service straight away as we will only have one surgery open at a time. We will be focusing on the people who have had problems in the last three months, but right now we will be unable to do big procedures such as root canals as anything that uses aerosol sprays has been severely limited under the guidelines.”

Further data from the BDA has said that 54% of practices in Yorkshire don’t have the necessary PPE to resume face-to-face care. At the Swan Dental Practise, Mr Bannister said:

“We were very slow in receiving guidance from the government about PPE, but we have adequate supply for now unless the guidance changes. It has been challenging for us as there have been increases in the price of equipments, masks for example have gone up approximately 500% in price”.

Dental practices in the district have opened today, with a limited capacity for appointments.

Read more:

• Debenhams have announced their Harrogate store will re-open on the 15th June.  
• North Yorkshire County Council has invested £1.3 million in an attempt to encourage residents to walk and cycle. 

The BDA Chair Mick Armstrong warned:

“Those expecting dentistry to magically return on Monday will find only a skeleton service. Practices reopening across Yorkshire and the Humber now face fewer patients and higher costs and will struggle to meet demand. Dentists returning to work still lack the support offered to our neighbours on the high street, and even clarity on key worker status when it comes to childcare. Ministers must change tack if dentistry is going to survive the new normal.”

Fountains Abbey and the Studley Royal water garden will re-open tomorrow to the public. However, only one car park will be available.

This week the National Trust began its phased re-opening of all of its sites to ensure maximum safety for their visitors.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is the next to re-open. It will limit the number of visitors and insists on pre-booking before arriving.

Visitors will have the opportunity the pre-book online and will be given a 30 minute time slot to arrive within. Visitors who arrive without pre-booking will be turned away.

The cafe is closed but the toilets will remain open to the public.

Justin Scully, General Manager of Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal said:

“We have introduced a booking system so we’re able to control numbers to maintain public safety. Whilst the Studley car park remains closed the main visitor centre car park will be open and visitors will need to book in advance. Given the unprecedented circumstances, and in order to keep everyone safe, your visit to the National Trust will feel different from normal.”

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is re-opening tomorrow with pre-booking essential for any visitors.

Read more:

• WATCH as Newby Hall prepares to re-open to the public in full bloom.
• The stunning area of Nidderdale could be under threat as six suspected incidents of bird poisonings take place during lockdown. 

Alexa Vernon is the Visitor Experience & Marketing Manager for the site, she said:

“The atmospheric abbey ruins, fanciful follies and elegant canals and ponds are all still the same though we have had to make some changes to keep everybody safe. All of our indoor spaces such as Fountains Hall and the Mill are closed as well as our playground. We’re asking everyone to park at the Visitor Centre though and to call ahead if they require level access.”

Woodfield Community Primary School in Harrogate reflects on its first week back after re-opening to limited year groups on Tuesday.

Woodfield Primary has remained open throughout the lockdown for the children of key workers. However, all pupils in nursery, reception, and year 1 are now also able to go back to school.

Jo Marwood, headteacher at the school, spoke to the Stray Ferret about how they have found the first week back:

 It’s definitely not the normal… We have about 25% of  our children back. We are focusing on the ‘bubble’ element. We have no more than 10 in each group and we keep the bubbles completely seperate. They have seperate start and finish times, break times and we have two metres between each desk in the classroms. We are staggering the return of pupils, so year 6 pupils will start to come back from next week.

There are government guidelines for schools to adhere too but there is no set  “uniform” approach.” This means not all schools have re-opened, and the ones that are may all be taking a slightly different approach.

 No school is the same… It depends on the size of the building, how many pupils you have and also how you interpret the guidelines. We are doing absolutely everything we can to ensure the safety of our pupils and staff. I dont think at the moment we could have all of the children back… We just don’t have the staff or the rooms.

Despite the gradual re-opening of schools within the borough, it is up to individual parents to decide if they feel it is safe to send their children back.

The McDonalds drive-thrus in Knaresborough and Ripon re-opened today to queues of customers.

During the pandemic, the restaurant chain had to close its doors but with safety measures in place it believes they can now safely operate the drive-thru’s.

There will be fewer staff on each shift to allow for social distancing. A limited menu and a capped spend of £25 have also been implemented.

In Knaresborough the customers queues saw up to 25 cars waiting to collect the food they had been missing for almost three months. Each car was stopped by a member of staff at the entrance and showed a leaflet of safety instructions.

Cars queued from the roundabout on St James retail park to be some of the first to eat at the restaurant since lockdown.

Read more:

• WATCH as Newby Hall prepared to open this week with its gardens in full bloom. 
• Harrogate town centre will be deep cleaned in preparation for shoppers to return. 

At the Ripon restaurant, the first in the queue were Matthew Jones and Georgia Coates, who live in Ripon and are regulars at the restaurant.

Matthew told The Stray Ferret:

“We were gutted when it closed, but it’s all good now.”

Throughout the day, a steady flow of cars came in from the Ripon bypass roundabout, marshalled into the drive through queue by two McDonald’s staff.

Franchisee Matthew Midwood said:

“We have been liaising for some time with North Yorkshire Police and they have been marvellous, helping us to put a traffic management plan in place. We anticipate being busy and want to avoid vehicles backing up to the roundabout. The takeaway side of our operation could have stayed open, but we took the decision as a business to close on 23rd March, for the safety and wellbeing of staff.”

Staff who have been furloughed during the temporary closure, will gradually return, as the government lockdown restrictions ease further and when restaurants are able to open their doors to eat in customers once more.