People entering some popular Harrogate food and drink venues will be required to have temperature checks from today as part of new measures to combat covid.

The Fat Badger pub, the Yorkshire Hotel, the White Hart Hotel and the restaurant Scran will all operate temperature checks.

New machines will instantly record the body temperature of visitors by scanning their wrists.

If anyone’s temperature exceeds 37.5 degrees centigrade, a red light will appear and the machine will beep loudly to indicate a high temperature – one of the main symptoms of covid.

The person will then be asked to leave the building for 15 minutes before having a second test, in case the first result was an anomaly caused by, for instance, carrying heavy shopping.

If their temperature remains too high they will be refused entry.

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Simon Cotton, managing director of the HRH Group, which owns the venues that have installed the new technology, said:

“We think it’s the right time now with covid cases increasing to be stepping up our measures. We want to do it before we are instructed to do so.”

Besides installing the machines, which Mr Cotton said cost several hundred pounds each, HRH Group venues have also required staff to wear face masks in public areas unless they are working behind protective screens.

Who else has tests?

Rudding Park and The Ivy are the only other two Harrogate venues believed to check temperature on entry.

Peter Banks, managing director of Rudding Park, said:

“Guests feel reassured by the machines. You don’t want people with a raging temperature coming in and coughing over everyone.”

David Straker, the owner of William and Victoria restaurant and wine bar on Cold Bath Road, said its current safety measures, which include table bookings and no standing at the bar, were working well. But he added:

“We are always looking at ways we can improve.”

Alan Huddart, treasurer of Bilton Working Men’s Club, said its reopening had gone smoothly and the cost of new equipment, such as temperature scanners, could be prohibitive to some venues. He added:

“We are open to looking at anything but we have had a professional risk assessment done and are following it closely.”

A woman from Harrogate has organised a golf event at Rudding Park to raise money for Saint Michaels Hospice.

Patricia Blenkinsop decided to start raising money for Saint Michael’s Hospice two years ago after her father was cared for by the team.

The golf competition is just one of a number of events she has organised in the hope of raising money for the charity.

The event, which was supposed to have taken place in April, has been rescheduled for October. Participants will be in teams of four and will complete a round of golf at Rudding Park followed by lunch, a raffle and a silent auction.

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Patricia was also supposed to be climbing Mount Kilimanjaro last month, but due to covid had to rearrange her trek for next June. She told the Stray Ferret:

“The change of date for both events has definitely allowed me more time to fundraise. I was just starting to gear up to really get into training to climb Kilimanjaro and then lockdown came.

“When you’re training to climb the world’s tallest free standing mountain, it is difficult because nowhere in England is that high! All you can do is be as fit as you can.”

Saint Michael’s Hospice offers specialist care and support to people with terminal illnesses.

In 2016, Patricia trekked the Grand Canyon to raise money for the hospice and this year wanted to take on a new challenge. Having got the idea to climb Kilimanjaro a number of years ago when she saw it from the window of a plane, she decided to make it her next target.

The golf event at Rudding Park will take place on October 8. To reserve your team or for more information, email Patricia or visit her JustGiving page.

Furloughed staff at Rudding Park Hotel in Harrogate have been supporting a number of volunteering initiatives during lockdown.

One of the initiatives was a “Litter Pick Up Pop Up” in order to help Harrogate look its best for when lockdown restrictions are eased further. In 320 hours, the team collected 400kg of rubbish and walked 1,600,000 steps, equating to 640 miles.

This comes as the public raised concern over huge amounts of litter being left in beauty spots across the district as hot weather arrived and lockdown restrictions were eased.

Peter Banks, managing director at Rudding Park said:

“Whilst they are unable to work for Rudding Park during this time, they can volunteer and many were keen to do their bit in the community. When the time comes for hotels to reopen it’s going to be important for us to showcase our beautiful town to its absolute best, so we hope this will help in some small way.”

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The volunteers also took part in another two initiatives including Hospitality Action, a service providing a helpline to retired hospitality workers, and Ripon Walled Garden, a charity which supports young children and adults with a learning disability.

The closure of the St George Hotel is symptomatic of the huge challenges facing the hospitality industry, according to the leader of the group representing the largest hotels in the Harrogate district.

Peter Banks, chairman of Harrogate Hospitality and Tourism Association, told The Stray Ferret: “They will be the first of many in the country. It’s going to be carnage. The high street will be changed for good.”

With Harrogate Convention Centre still set up as a Nightingale hospital and remaining on stand-by for an indefinite period, Mr Banks, who is general manager at Rudding Park, said there is a large question mark hanging over the viability of the industry in the district.

“What about all the bedrooms that go hand-in-hand with the convention centre? If it’s a hospital for a year, all of those big shows won’t be going on and all their attendees and delegates will not be staying in the hotel bedrooms.

“Only about three per cent of the bedrooms I sell are related to the convention centre, but there are other hotels that are much more like 30, 40, 50 per cent. Where’s that business going to come from?”

Sitting opposite the convention centre, the St George was likely to have been more affected than most by it being out of use for events. But Mr Banks said being part of a business which also operated coach tours put it at greater risk than many of the district’s other hotels.

Peter Banks, chairman of Harorgate Hospitality and Tourism Association

While quarantine restrictions are in place for overseas travel, Harrogate is likely to get a boost from UK tourists. However, Mr Banks said HHTA’s thoughts haven’t yet turned to how the district can capitalise on this and market itself effectively:

“Right now, everybody is just trying to work out how the hell we’re going to operate. We’re that far away from creating any marketing plans. If you can’t work out how people are going to go to the loo safely, it might be putting the cart before the horse.”

Weight of responsibility

He criticised the guidance from the government as “about as clear as mud”, saying they had left businesses to try to work out how to operate safely without straightforward rules. Hotel owners, he said, felt an enormous weight of responsibility to protect staff and visitors from the risk of catching Covid-19 and were constantly re-writing their plans as government guidance changed.

For example, he said reducing the number of staff in hotel kitchens means overhauling menus – and putting those menus onto apps instead of passing them between staff and customers. Even simple things like passing in corridors and using toilets will have to be considered and controlled. He added:

“My hotel manager said it’s going to be like re-opening a new hotel. It’s going to be like opening a new hotel on Mars. The rules are going to be entirely different and we’re going to have to change things day by day while we work out how it works.”

Peter Banks says re-opening Rudding Park will be ‘like opening a new hotel on Mars’

Mr Banks said he expects most of the hotels in Harrogate to be large enough to sustain themselves through the current turmoil. For restaurants, however, he said even if they are able to reopen in the coming weeks, social distancing may make it impossible for them to break even, let alone make a profit.

“The furlough scheme has been a life-saver, but frankly all it’s doing is kicking the can down the road. We’re all going to have to cope without the support of the government at some point. It’s delaying the inevitable when a lot of smaller businesses will not be able to make a profit.

“If they have to get 70 per cent occupancy to break even in restaurants, what’s the point? They just won’t open.

The hospitality industry is extremely worried. Everyone is getting ready to open in July at some point but everyone is worried about what it’s going to look like.”

Short-term ‘bounce’

As well as the hotel receptionists, cleaners, kitchen porters, accountants and others who lose their jobs when a hotel closes, Mr Banks said there is a ripple effect to others such as food suppliers. Even the move to cashless systems to reduce the risk of infection will result in job losses, as cashing up is no longer needed and couriers won’t be required to take money to the bank.

The result could be further redundancies being made across all industries, leaving people with less cash in their pockets. While Mr Banks said he expects a short-term “bounce” for many hotels and restaurants soon after reopening, he said the winter could be very quiet as people run out of money they have saved during lockdown, or more job losses hit across the UK.

However, he sounded a note of optimism for the Harrogate district.

“Harrogate is an awful lot more fortunate than a lot of other places. We have a great natural resource, a really beautiful built environment, unlike so many other places. We will be less affected than others.”

Jade Edwards and Henry Stam were meant to tie the knot on May 9, at Rudding Park, but due to coronavirus, their big day has been postponed.

To make matters worse the couple weren’t even able to spend their ‘not wedding day’ together as Henry works as a doctor in A&E at Harrogate Hospital. Jade told the Stray Ferret that the whole thing has been very sad:

 It was meant to be such a special year, it’s just so sad… Henry has moved into an apartment in Harrogate as he is very much on the front line of the pandemic and we have an 11-month-old daughter so he didn’t want to put her or me at risk, so we couldn’t even spend the day together… a few other couples we know got dressed up and had a nice meal at home, but we couldn’t do that.

Henry isn’t very emotional, but even he said that at 1pm last Saturday he was looking at his watch thinking about where we should have been… But it’s out of our control, we will just have to look forward to next year.

The couple initially postponed the ceremony to the 4th July, but as time went out they realised that, even if it could go ahead then, that it wouldn’t be the wedding they wanted.

I didn’t want everyone to be in face mask or for my older relatives to not be able to come, so we thought it was best to just push it back until next year… The venue have been brilliant, they have just dealt with the whole thing for us, nothing was an issue.

Laura Lindsay who is a wedding planner in Harrogate, usually organises 50 weddings between April and September. She told the Stray Ferret that this is not something the industry ever imagined having to go through :

 Everything up until august is out of the window for most of my brides… and anyone who is holding out is looking at a different style of wedding day… this is no longer 100 guests it’s on a much smaller scale.

2020 brides will have bought their products, personalised them with their dates date, sent out invites… they are now having to do this twice which is an added expense.

With the majority of weddings this year being moved over to 2021 Laura advised that people secured their dates quickly. She went on to say:

I just want to remind you all when you’re feeling down that your wedding will happen and when it does it is going to be an amazing celebration,  there will be people that won’t of seen each other in such a long time and the whole day will be valued so much more.