Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

New houses should mean lower council tax

Not only do we have thousands of new houses in the district but 1,700 extra have been built! I cannot, therefore, understand why our council tax is going up rather than coming down!

I would assume a surfeit, especially with so many being in the higher bands.

Janet Palmer, Knaresborough

Why are roads constantly being dug up?

Leadhall Lane in Harrogate has been a shambles of a road for many years, with deep potholes causing hazards for motorists and cyclists.

At the same time, numerous gas leaks have been excavated and repaired, to the cost of Northern Gas Networks and the exceptional inconvenience of local road users.

The potholes caused considerable crashes and bangs into the road from school buses and lorries. Hurrah! It was relaid in 2021.

Yesterday there was a gas stink in Leadhall Lane. Today there is a big hole in Leadhall Lane. Northern Gas Networks is digging it up again.

Why do we have to suffer this continual under-performance from the council in relation to controlling the actions of privatised utility companies? Are they incompetent or not?

David Graham, Harrogate

Read more:

• £72 rise in Harrogate district council tax bills set to be confirmed
• Swift action to tackle Sharow’s pothole plight
• Woman visiting daughter’s grave issues dog fouling plea

Stray Ferret penalised for reporting facts

It comes as no surprise that your reporter was refused access to Ripon’s new pool when other media was allowed.

You are being penalised for reporting the real facts about the farcical events surrounding the pool and its build not forgetting the extra money we gave the construction firm.

Myself and thousands of others applaud you The Stray Ferret for all your news articles released to us.

Maranda Harling, Ripon

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

The Stray Ferret celebrates its second birthday today.

The website launched on March 4, 2020 — less than three weeks before the first national covid lockdown.

Much has changed since then, and the Stray Ferret has been first with the news that matters to people in the Harrogate district.

In December last year we launched our App which can be downloaded here. The Stray Ferret website and app now attract more than a million page views a month and an average of  210,000 users. We have a very engaged social media following of more than 24,000 who comment on stories, debate the issues we report on and tell us what they think of our journalism.

Readership has grown consistently and we look forward to continuing to serve the people of Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough, Boroughbridge, Pateley Bridge and Masham, as well as all points in between.

Thank you for your support. Keep sending us your news to contact@thestrayferret.co.uk.

We thought you might be interested to see which stories got the most attention in the past year.

Top 10 most-read Stray Ferret stories

1. Live blog on Jennyfields gas leak
2. Live blog on last month’s floods
3. St Aidan’s school in Harrogate rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted
4. Harrogate Food Hall to close after just six months
5. Guide to fireworks display in the Harrogate district
6. Live blog: Fuel Watch
7. Taylor Wimpey responds to TV report of ‘nightmare’ Harrogate new build
8. Delivery van gets stuck on Harrogate’s Stray after attempting shortcut
9. Harrogate Christmas market cancelled
10. Arrest warrant for former Coach and Horses landlord

From a peculiar ceremony in Masham to a choir singing in a car park, here are our top five favourite videos of the last year.

The videos are in no set order and do not necessarily reflect the number of views it received at the time but captured some heartwarming moments.

In total the video is eight minutes long, with some clips running up to three minutes and others running for less than a minute.

Video 1 – Highlights from the Great Yorkshire Show 2021

The first video is our highlights of the Great Yorkshire Show 2021. It was return of the show after a year out for coronavirus.

During the video you will see some of those who tried out in various competitions, a special royal visit as well as the sights and sounds of the show.

Video 2 – Harrogate tries out deep fried creme eggs

A Harrogate fish and chip shop put an unusual twist on the Cadbury’s Creme Egg by dipping them in batter and frying them.

Sophie Phillips, who owns Harrogate Fisheries on Skipton Road with her partner Tim, said the cream egg innovation “sounds totally wrong” but they were a hit.

Video 3 – Harrogate choir delights with performances in a car park

One of the unusual but beautiful sounds of the coronavirus pandemic for residents in Harrogate was the choir which would perform in a car park due to restrictions.

Since September the choir has been using the unconventional rehearsal space, on the 10th floor of the multi-storey car park on Tower Street.

The group was able to pull off its rehearsals by keeping the group to a maximum of 30 and social distancing.

Video 4 – Peculiar Masham ceremony delights

We captured a rare and curious tradition in Masham were an apprentice barrel make became a journeyman cooper.

Euan Findlay, who started work at Theakston Brewery five years ago, was centre stage for the historic ‘trussing in’ ceremony.

Fellow coopers from across the country gathered in Masham to witness Mr Findlay’s coronavirus-delayed initiation into the Federation of Coopers.

Video 5 – Emotional Harrogate reunion for Puss the cat

We also filmed the emotional reunion of Puss the cat, who escaped from the Great Yorkshire Show after sneaking into a Scottish farmer’s sheep trailer, and her owners.

Farmer David Mitchell and his wife Annette drove 200 miles from East Ayrshire to collect the intrepid moggy who they feared was lost forever.

Mr Mitchell arrived at the showground on Wednesday last week to show sheep. When he opened the trailer, Puss bolted and disappeared.

Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Scrap the Station Gateway

The Station Gateway project should be scrapped entirely in its present form even if this means losing out on the current funding. The current proposal is a highway engineer’s solution to a problem that simply does not focus on the important issues from an holistic point of view.

It is ‘pocket planning’ and requires an urban design-led concept which addresses all concerns, operating less on the imposed ‘we know best’ principle by the project leaders, and more on engagement with all sectors, especially those who care and whose livelihoods depend on Harrogate.

It needs to be a replacement vision with the real support of the businesses and people of our town. It needs to be one which above all addresses the problem of through traffic and the serious consideration of a park and ride service. Until this happens there is no successful considered alternative solution to Harrogate’s problems

A replacement funding stream is likely to materialise for a replacement vision and one which has the real support of the businesses and people of Harrogate. Once again, as with the Otley Road cycle route, the current proposal is another case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’. In other words, ‘grab the money while we can and then, oh, what shall we do with it?’ without having any masterplan in place.

If the current leadership is not capable of accepting this then I consider we, the citizens of Harrogate, should call for a vote of no confidence in the current project leadership. This could be arranged through an online petition.

Barry Adams, Harrogate

Read more:

• Harrogate Army Foundation College instructor demoted for punching teenage soldiers
• ‘Station Gateway consultation a whitewash’, claim Harrogate petitioners

Harrogate should have had a bypass

This multi-million pound moving of the deckchairs around the Titanic will only serve as a timely reminder of the dismal failure to deliver a bypass (ably aided and abetted by our member of parliament) and the absurd notion that 95% of Harrogate’s traffic is “local”. Never mind, the Skipton and Wetherby roads can cope, as ever.

Nick Hudson, The Saints, Harrogate

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

John Plummer is to take over the reins as Editor of the Stray Ferret.

John succeeds Tamsin O’Brien, who is to become Managing Editor and have a more strategic role.

John began his career as a journalist on local newspapers in his native Fens.

He later moved to London where he worked for, amongst others, The Times and Third Sector, which covers the UK voluntary sector.

In September last year he was appointed Deputy Editor of the Stray Ferret, where he worked alongside fellow Deputy Editor Vicky Carr, who is currently on maternity leave.

John has one daughter and has lived in Killinghall for about 10 years.

The Stray Ferret has seen a rapid growth in readership — last month we had more than 736,000 page views covering every aspect of news in the district.

Read More: 

• New Lifestyle Editor starts work at the Stray Ferret
• MPs watch: Afghanistan, football freebies and food banks

Tamsin said:

“John has been a very capable Deputy Editor and I am delighted to promote him to Editor.

“He has brought a wealth of journalism experience to the team and I am sure that under his leadership the Stray Ferret will continue to grow its readership and not be afraid to cover all the important stories in the district.

“It’s the right time for me to take a more strategic role across the whole business”

Have you got a story for the Stray Ferret news team or think there is an issue we need to investigate? Please get in touch on contact@thestrayferret.co.uk

The Stray Ferret today marks its first anniversary, celebrating rapid growth in the last 12 months.

The website launched earlier than planned to cover the covid crisis as it unfolded last March, in the weeks before the first lockdown began.

In the last year, we have published more than 3,000 stories, had more than five million page views and attracted 12,000 social media followers.

The site has focused on delivering valuable news for the community during the pandemic, from keeping track of the daily covid figures to telling the stories of those doing their best to keep everyone smiling in the toughest of times, such as last year’s VE Day celebrations. Free jobs listings for the district and an index of businesses have also been added as we play our part in helping the local economy to survive.

After one of the most difficult years anyone in the Harrogate district can remember, we will also be ensuring those who have been lost in the last year are not forgotten. Our series of tributes to lost loved ones begins next week.

Meanwhile, we have also carried out in-depth investigations into how public money is spent.

We published a series of articles on the decision-making behind Harrogate Borough Council’s move to its new civic centre, showing that the failure to take into account the high value of the land at Knapping Mount when presenting the figures to the public.

We also investigated how the council’s failure to produce an acceptable local plan left the district open to predatory developers seeking opportunities to build homes for profit, rather than to meet local need.

Our journalists have broken exclusive stories, such as the hotelier who held a New Year’s Eve party in breach of covid lockdown rules and police investigations into allegations of fraud at a company where a Harrogate councillor and MP’s case worker was a “person of significant control”.

We began publishing with a small team of journalists in March 2020. Since then, the news team has grown to seven, along with four commercial staff and a content producer.

Tamsin O’Brien, owner of the Stray Ferret and former head of BBC Yorkshire, said the news team has aimed to cover the issues that people locally care about:

“Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our stories, read us and followed us on social media.  We know that there is a real demand for high quality, local digital news content. 

We have really tried to cover every aspect of how covid has impacted lives and investigated the issues that matter to people. We live in a time of great change and people locally want to engage in those issues and have a voice. 

“We are frequently asked to look into matters concerning our readers, demonstrating their trust in us to report it accurately, impartially and fairly.”

Over the coming months, the Stray Ferret will be working with more local businesses to help them reach a large and loyal audience. The aim is for the site to be fully funded through advertising, with a speciality in making video shorts for social media on behalf of local advertisers.

Head of commercial Emma Harris said the next six months will be significant as lockdown measures are eased:  

“Now we have an established quality news platform, we can concentrate on driving the commercial side of the business forward. 

“Times have been difficult for businesses, however, with all legal restrictions set to be lifted in June, I am confident that businesses will want to celebrate what they have to offer and we’re looking forward to partnering with them.”

The Stray Ferret is also committed to developing journalism students and has work placement arrangements in place with Leeds University and Leeds Beckett University. In the past year we’ve had four successful work placements.

A real-life stray ferret spotted last Saturday has returned home safely to its rightful owners.

Owner Jess Silver and Jordan Croxford noticed their ferret, Dynamite, was missing from his cage in the early hours of Saturday morning and suspected he had been stolen.

But Dynamite was spotted by Evelyn Rose on Saturday, May 30 on Skipton Street at 10.15pm. Evelyn then got in contact with us at The Stray Ferret in a bid to unite the animal with its owners.

However, much to the Croxford’s surprise and relief, Dynamite returned back home safely on Sunday morning.

Dynamite – preferred life a home than roaming the streets of Harrogate

Owners Jess and Jordan told The Stray Ferret:

“We left the cage door open and on Sunday morning we thought we’d check to see if he had come back and he was fast asleep in his bed.”

The owners suspect Dynamite was stolen from his cage in their garden in the early hours of Saturday morning and was most likely set free when he revealed his sharp teeth.

Read more:

• Churches in the Boroughbridge area unite for pet service 
• South Stainley farmers paint their sheep in honour of the NHS 

Jess Silver said:

“In a year he’s never escaped so there’s no way possible he has just gone out. We couldn’t believe it when we saw where he’d been!”

Dynamite was rescued from his previous owner who no longer wanted him just under a year ago. Along with Dynamite, Jess and Jordan also have a second ferret named Jill who has recently had a litter of Kits.

The owners of the ferret are both very pleased to have Dynamite home safely!