Ripon is preparing for a bank holiday street party after Knaresborough took centre stage yesterday.

Knaresborough Spring Fayre saw thousands of people visit the sun-bathed Market Place.

The activities included a free petting farm, a free craft tent, fairground rides, a spring window competition, a magician and an appearance by the Easter bunny.

It was the second time the spring fayre has been staged by Knaresborough Business Collective, which was set up by a group of small businesses to make the town centre more vibrant.

Yesterday’s event certainly had the town buzzing for the entire six hours from 10am to 4pm.

Collective member Natalie Horner said:

“It was such a brilliant day and a huge success for both the event itself and the shops in town too.

“The weather was lovely and it was so nice to see so much community spirit and joy in town.”

The Nailery won the spring window competition.

The forecast looks a little less kind for tomorrow’s street party on Kirkgate in Ripon, but spirits will no doubt be equally high.

Kirkgate will be closed to traffic from 10am to 4pm while residents and visitors enjoy live music, al fresco dining and entertainment.

The event is part of the Totally Locally scheme being adopted by traders and Ripon Business Improvement District to encourage people to spend with independent businesses in the city.

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• ‘Intense’ talks to save Ripon firm Farmison after buyout collapses

Niamh Radford-Naylor

Photo of the Week celebrates the Harrogate district. It could be anything from family life to capturing the district’s beauty. We are interested in amateur and professional photographs, in a landscape format.

Send your photographs to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk for a chance to be featured next week, we reserve the right to adjust and crop images to fit into our format.

Intense negotiations are taking place over the bank holiday weekend to save one of Ripon’s largest employers .

Premium meat retailer Farmison & Co ceased trading on Thursday and entered administration. Most of the 92 staff were made redundant.

All items on the company’s website are currently listed as ‘out of stock’.

Farmison co-founder John Pallagi told the Stray Ferret he was talking to a consortium led by two Yorkshire businessmen about a management buyout.

It comes after buyout talks with another online butcher, Tom Hixson of Smithfield, fell through.

Mr Pallagi said:

“I hope to have some news by the end of the long weekend.

“Farmison isn’t trading at the moment but I haven’t given up hope. We are an amazing business and this is a great opportunity.

“We have half a million people on our database and an established UK brand that has won many awards. There’s every reason to keep this company alive.”

Mr Pallagi said last night he had been engaged in 48 hours of exhausting talks with the potential new owners after administrators FRP took control of the company on Maundy Thursday.

He said the firm had serviced all orders that had been placed and a “small working team” remained on site to deal with any unresolved issues.

Read more:

• 90 jobs at stake as struggling Ripon firm Farmison seeks buyer
• Kirkgate to close for Easter street party in Ripon

Last year Mr Pallagi sold Farmison, whose customers include Harrods and Fortnum & Mason, to Scottish private investors Inverleith LLP.

He remained as chief executive and a new three-year business plan was agreed. But when the plan faltered he approached Ripon and Skipton Conservative MP Julian Smith and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for help.

Mr Pallagi said:

“I’m a fighter. I’ve been in this business for 21 years and I’m confident we can turn around this wrong turn that we’ve taken.”

Mr Pallagi started Farmison to work with local farmers and encourage people to ‘eat better meat’.

Despite sales doubling to £12m in 2021, the company then made a loss of £2.6m.

A veteran of the Falklands War has presented a soldier’s letter he found 40 years ago to the Argentinian Ambassador to the UK in the hopes of finding its original owner. 

Jim Phillips, who lives in Ripon, was serving with the Royal Engineers in Port Stanley when he found a “bluey” – a blue-coloured airmail letter often used by soldiers posted overseas – which had been written by an Argentinian soldier to his wife or girlfriend back home. 

Knowing how much soldiers and their families in all countries value hearing word from each other, he wanted to return the letter, but it was lost during a house move. 

Fortunately, the letter came to light again just before Christmas 2022, when Jim was looking for something else. He said:

“I instantly sent an email to the Argentine embassy in London to help me get this letter to either the sender or recipient, or either of their families. I informed the embassy as I was coming down to London I could pop it into reception. No, they said, the ambassador will come to Ripon to accept the letter from me personally.” 

So last week, Jim met the Argentinian Ambassador to the UK, Javier Figueroa, over lunch at Grantley Hall, near Ripon, to hand over the lost letter.

Mr Figueroa, who has long taken a special interest in the Falkland Islands and last year said the war had been “stupid”, promised to do everything he could to ensure the letter got back to its rightful owner, a Corporal Balbuena.

In an Instagram post on the embassy’s account, Mr Figueroa called the the episode a “heartwarming story”, and said he “appreciated Mr Phillips’ gesture“.

The Argentinian soldier’s letter 

Jim said: 

“Hopefully, the Argentine soldier concerned is still alive and this letter will find its way back to him and perhaps he can then deliver it personally.

“On a personal note, I would like to thank Ambassador Figueroa for taking the time to come to Ripon to accept the letter, also to thank him for his hospitality, friendship and help in getting this letter home.” 

The Falklands War was fought over 10 weeks in 1982 and began when the right-wing military government of Argentina sent a surprise invasion force, which took possession of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia on April 2. 

The UK, then led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, dispatched a task force of ships, aircraft and soldiers to take back the islands, which are internationally recognised British Overseas Territories.

The conflict, which ended on June 14 with a British victory and the capture of more than 11,000 Argentine soldiers, claimed more than 900 lives, over 70% of them Argentinian. 

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Councillors have criticised North Yorkshire Council after it confirmed not all meetings will be live streamed online.

North Yorkshire Council replaced the seven district and borough councils, including Harrogate, as well as North Yorkshire County Council on Saturday.

It is the largest council area in England, spanning over 3,000 square miles with most of its meeting taking place at County Hall in Northallerton.

During the covid pandemic, the government passed legislation to allow council business to continue online. Meetings took place on apps such as Microsoft Teams and were live streamed for residents to watch on YouTube.

Since pandemic restrictions were lifted, Harrogate Borough Council continued to live stream all of its meetings whereas North Yorkshire County Council only routinely live streamed executive and full council meetings.

Following a question by a councillor, a senior officer at the new council confirmed in an email that the previous North Yorkshire County Council live streaming arrangement will continue.

County Hall in Northallerton

This means that at the moment, the only chance residents will get to see what is happening in a host of other meetings, including those concerning public health, education and transport, is if they travel to Northallerton.

However, meetings in Harrogate, such as planning committee, licensing committee and area constituency committee, will be streamed using equipment bought by Harrogate Borough Council.

But they will no longer include developments affecting Ripon, Masham and Pateley Bridge as meetings in Harrogate will cover the Harrogate and Knaresborough parliamentary constituency.

The email concludes by saying the new council is reviewing “what is possible and practicable” regarding live streaming meetings in the future.

Three-hour round trip

In some parts of Craven such as Ingleton or Bentham it’s a three-hour round trip to County Hall.

Andy Brown, Green Party councillor for Aire Valley, said residents should not be expected to travel to Northallerton to “watch democracy in action.” He added:

“Working online can save hours of travelling and make the meeting more efficient. It is crazy that I am travelling for 90 minutes to attend meetings that could be done online.

“It is wrong that meetings which could be steamed into the homes of every interested member of the public are not conducted as openly as possible.”

Andy Solloway, Independent councillor for Skipton West and West Craven said:

“The outgoing Craven District Council have been recording meetings for years, and live streaming them, especially decision making ones, would be a good thing for local democracy and for public participation and engagement.”

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Arnold Warneken, Green Party councillor for Ouseburn, also said he was in favour of the council live streaming all meetings:

“Someone should be able to open their laptop in their house and see what the council is up to. Sometimes it’s like watching paint dry but you can have it on in background. That is transparency and engagement.

“The meetings should all be streamed if we’re serious about carbon and the impact we make ourselves. There’s a lot of support for it.”

What the council says

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for democratic services, Cllr
David Chance, said:

“We are committed to ensuring that the new North Yorkshire Council has local
communities at its heart, despite serving such a vast area across the county.

“The online streaming of council meetings has been an important way of making sure that access is available as widely as possible to both councillors and members of the public.

“Meetings of full council and the executive will be routinely streamed online, and we will continue to record and broadcast planning and licensing meetings that were previously overseen by district and borough councils.

“We will consider broadcasting or recording other meetings when there is a strong public interest or where there are facilities in place that enable it to be readily done.

“The new council is the third largest in the country, and now oversees services that were previously delivered by eight authorities in North Yorkshire. There are therefore a significant number of meetings each year, which is in the region of 200.

“We are reviewing what is possible and practicable regarding the recording and broadcasting of meetings, taking into account the facilities which are available across the county, the IT and democratic support that is needed as well as investment in IT infrastructure.”

Roadworks are set to bring three months of disruption to motorists travelling between Ripon and Harrogate.

The A61 will be dug up as part of fibre optics company City Fibre‘s £46 million digital infrastructure upgrade in Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon.

Work has been completed in most areas. However, signs have gone up on the A61 Ripon Road warning that nighttime work will take place between April 17 and July 13.

Kim Johnston, regional partnership director at City Fibre said:

“From April 17, we will be starting work on the A61 between Harrogate and Ripon.

“This work will last for approximately three months and will require traffic management on one side of the road.

“Works will take place 7pm to 6.30am, Monday to Friday, with the road returned to two-way traffic every morning.”

Traffic lights will be in place during these hours, and no detours are planned.

A City Fibre spokesperson added “there may be a small amount of weekend work, subject to confirmation with highways”, adding:

“If this is the case, City Fibre will actively avoid any weekend with a major local event like Harrogate Flower Show.”

The entire length of the A61 between Ripon and Harrogate will be affected.

Ms Johnston said:

“CityFibre is investing £46m in transforming Harrogate and Ripon’s digital infrastructure and bringing next generation full fibre connectivity to almost every home and business in the area.

“This is a major undertaking, which is why we work closely with our build partner, local authorities and the council’s highways team to manage disruption as best we can and ensure works are delivered quickly, and always to our high standards.”

Read more:

• Ripon‘s non-stop knitters create Easter displays for the city centre
• Harrogate road to be closed until November

A village school near Ripon has been told to make improvements to its teaching by the schools inspector.

Sharow Church of England Primary School has been rated ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted in its latest report, with three of the five areas of inspection receiving that rating.

Inspectors found the quality of education, personal development, and leadership and management at the school no longer merited the ‘good’ rating previously given to the school. However, they said the early years provision, and behaviour and attitudes, remained ‘good’.

In a report published just before the end of term, lead inspector Paul Martindale said:

“Pupils, including children in early years, enjoy coming to school. Staff provide a supportive atmosphere where pupils behave well and are friendly to one another.

“Pupils are polite, well mannered, and respectful towards staff and their peers. They listen intently to what other pupils have to say and then build on this with their own ideas or comments.

“Pupils feel safe and say that bulling does not happen at school. They are clear about the school rules, rewards and consequences.”

He added:

“Pupils enjoy taking on many different responsibilities. They appreciate being a member of the school council or a well-being ambassador. Their desire to help others is not limited to these roles.

“Pupils have a friendship bench in the playground where they can help their friends. They enjoy spending time in the peace garden.”

Among the areas inspectors praised in the report was a new phonics programme. After visiting the school in early February, inspectors said the programme had been implemented effectively and pupils made good progress with their reading.

They said pupils who were struggling were given support to make more progress.

Inspectors also praised the “well-sequenced plans” used to deliver maths teaching. In both English and maths, they said teachers used effective assessment to get a clear understanding of what pupils knew and what they needed to learn next.

The report said:

“Staff have high ambitions for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff modify their teaching to help pupils with SEND learn the same curriculum as their peers, wherever possible.

“In early years, adults know the needs and interests of their children. They use ambitious and accurate language in their interactions with children, and this extends their understanding.”

Read more:

• ‘Decisive plans’ improving village school near Harrogate, says Ofsted
• Disappointment as Ofsted says village school near Ripon ‘requires improvement’

However, the report said the standard of education was not as high in all subject areas.

Inspectors found the quality of education was “variable” and learning was “not as deep” in some subjects as others.

Addressing personal development, they said:

“Staff provide pupils with a range of opportunities to support their personal development. This is evident through the different roles that pupils can carry out or the clubs that they can join, such as the lunchtime choir.

“However, pupils’ understanding of British values and protected characteristics is limited. Pupils also have a limited knowledge of religion. They are able to recall general principles, but cannot attribute them to any particular faith. Leaders acknowledge that this is due to previous weaknesses in the curriculum.”

The report acknowledged governors and leaders were aware there were improvements to be made and had begun to do so. It said governors needed to continue their strategic review to ensure they had the appropriate knowledge and skills to hold the school’s leaders to account effectively.

The Stray Ferret contacted Sharow Primary School for a response to the report before the Easter break, but had not received one by the time of publication.

Sharow Primary School has 103 pupils and is federated with Skelton Newby Hall Church of England Primary School, sharing an executive headteacher, Jacqui Palmer, and a governing body.

Skelton Newby Hall Primary School was rated ‘requires improvement’ in March 2020 and is currently under threat of closure by North Yorkshire Council, on the grounds of low roll numbers. Should it close this summer as proposed, the council suggested moving its 10 pupils to Sharow Primary School.

A severely sight impaired Ripon resident has thanked highways workers for their swift action in attending to trip hazards near his home.

Graham Wilkey who lives in the Bondgate area, raised concerns about cracked and uneven pavements that made him wary of walking into the city centre, even with the assistance of Riley, his three-year-old guide dog.

He told the Stray Ferret:

“Riley can ensure that I cross roads safely and avoid obstacles such as signage blocking pavements, but he can’t stop me from falling if I trip on a broken paving stone and that’s why I decided to contact the council.”

Workmen patching the pavement near Mr Wilkey’s home

Following Mr Wilkey’s call, a highways engineer responded quickly to inspect the pavements and identified eight stones in need of removal.

On Thursday, two days before North Yorkshire County Council became the new North Yorkshire Council on April 1, workmen arrived to remove the damaged paving and replace it with tarmac.

Mr Wilkey said:

“I’d like to thank them for sorting out the problem so quickly and making the walk into the city centre safer for me and other sight-impaired people and those with mobility issues.

“There’s a lot of Ripon roads and pavements still in need of repair, but this is an encouraging start.”

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The building that will house the £300,000 temporary gym at the Jack Laugher Leisure and Wellness Centre has been located in the car park near the entrance to the swimming pool.

The prefabricated structure was put into position yesterday morning using a long-reach mobile crane and while the opening date has yet to be confirmed, a spokesperson for North Yorkshire Council told the Stray Ferret:

“I believe it will be towards the end of the month (April) that customers will start to use the alternative gym.”

The temporary building

Once up and running, the temporary facility will enable the closure of the existing gym on the upper floor of the 28-year-old leisure centre next to the new swimming pool that opened last March.

This will pave the way for ground stabilisation works costing £3.5million to be carried out under the building.

The temporary gym, operated by Brimhams Active on behalf of the newly-formed North Yorkshire Council unitary authority, will be fitted out with Technogym equipment currently available in the existing leisure and wellness centre, and expert advice and guidance will be available.

Customers will still be able to use the changing and shower facilities in the new pool area – as well as the sauna and steam suite – as they will remain open as normal.

Group exercise classes will also continue to be provided at Hugh Ripley Hall.

Read more:

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• North Yorkshire Council seeks to make savings of £252 million

North Yorkshire Police is appealing for information about a group of boys throwing bricks at a window in Ripon.

In a media release issued today, police said the “criminal damage incident” took place on Aismunderby Road at about 4.45pm yesterday.

The release said:

“Several teenagers threw a brick at a property window. The teenagers were described as approximately 12 to 14 years old.”

Anyone with information can email gareth.skelton@northyorkshire.police.uk or dial 101, select option 2, and ask for Gareth Skelton.

Or you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111

Quote reference number 12230057881.

Read more:

• 90 jobs at stake as struggling Ripon firm Farmison seeks buyer
• NHS places to be lost as Ripon dental practice closure announced