For the past few weeks, we’ve been introducing you to the team behind The Stray Ferret.

The spotlight is on John Grainger this week, our senior journalist.

Although John’s childhood ambition of being a stuntman may never have been realised due to a ‘keener sense of self-preservation’ as an adult, his career has still featured plenty of excitement – albeit the journalistic kind.  

25 years in the industry has meant he’s covered his fair share of genre-defining news events, but his first story is still one that he recalls as being of particular significance.  

“The first one I ever wrote – about the rise of Islamic finance – was a pretty big one in hindsight.

 “That industry was tiny at the time, and no-one was writing about it, but it’s now worth hundreds of billions of pounds and is very well established worldwide. It was like glimpsing the birth of a star.” 

 Longer-form, investigative content is one of the many areas that John is lending his expertise to at The Stray Ferret. 

Since he joined the team, he’s been responsible for raising important questions such as whether the Stray should be rewilded, as well as his slew of exclusives about the anti-social problems in Harrogate town centre.

 Explaining his approach to tackling such a vast and complex subject, John said: 

“I carried out a survey of more than 50 businesses and listened to shop owners and store managers as they recounted their experiences, then sifted through the data to pull out the main findings. 

“I also interviewed the manager of Harrogate BID and the area police commander, went out with police officers on patrol, and spoke with people living on the street to hear their stories.

“At the same time, my colleague Calvin Robinson combed through reams of government statistics, spoke to Shelter and Harrogate Homeless Project, and submitted multiple Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

“The result is a piece of work that really sets a new standard for journalistic reporting in this district.”

John Grainger speaking to Chief Inspector Simon Williamson of North Yorkshire Police

Having both the time and resources available to fully follow every lead, to provide accurate, detailed and trusted journalism is very important to John, and an area he feels that The Stray Ferret truly shines.  

 He said:

“We’re the best at breaking news, but we also have time to put into more in-depth journalism about people and places you might not have heard about before. A lot of news outlets don’t have the resources to do that anymore.” 

 Originally heralding from Harrogate, John moved away when he was 18 before returning later in his career, having previously lived in cities across the UK and mainland Europe. 

 He believes that having lived in the area throughout many different stages of his life – ‘as a child and as an adult, as a school pupil and as a parent’ – have all given him a greater depth of insight into North Yorkshire life.  

 John added:

“Charles Dickens said that Harrogate was ‘the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives’. That is, arguably, still true today, and it makes my job all the more interesting. 

“We have two National Parks close by; the coast is a just a day trip away; Leeds, York and even Durham are all driveable. 

“Where I live, I can walk one way and get into town within 15 minutes, or walk the other way and be in the countryside within five. It’s on the right side of the Pennines – and the tap-water’s good.” 

 If you think you’ve got a story that might be of interest to John, you can email him at grainger@thestrayferret.co.uk. 

Ripon Theatre Festival, which goes from strength to strength, has announced a strategic partnership with the Stray Ferret.

North Yorkshire’s leading online news service has been appointed media sponsors for the fast-growing festival, which was launched in 2022,

As preparations continue for an extended third year programme and with tickets now on sale festival director Katie Scott, said:

“We are delighted to welcome the Stray Ferret as our media sponsors for the 2024  festival.

“We have appreciated the encouragement and coverage which the Stray Ferret has given us. Working together helps us to reach more people with news of our vibrant and exciting plans for the summer.

“All of us involved in planning for and running the festival. like to think that we “punch above our weight”

Ms Scott added:

“With its wide range of professional and community performances and activities,  entirely volunteer-led, we make this happen though imaginative partnerships with venues, funders and community groups who are all working to help put Ripon on the map and make it a great place to live, work and visit.”

Charley Christopher, marketing and audience manager at the Stray Ferret, said:

“We are thrilled to be the festival’s principal media sponsor. It’s a partnership we’re excited about and we know from recent research, our readers are very much inspired by arts, culture and events happening in the area.

“Not only does the festival make the arts accessible to all and encourages visitors to this beautiful, unique city.”

Festival highlights for 2024

This year’s festival highlights include an appearance by radical theatre company Red Ladder, a cabaret act featuring the music of Victoria Wood and a return visit from actor Barrie Rutter.

Newby Hall will be a new location for festival favourites and open-air theatre specialists Illyria and the garden at the Old Deanery will provide a backdrop for theatre al fresco when it hosts the Sunday night Shakespearean finale.

Full details of all the festival’s plans including street theatre, pop-up events and free family activities will be announced at the official launch on Thursday, March 21.

Tickets are already on sale for this event, which features comedy cook George Egg with his latest show Set Menu. Tickets include the show, refreshments and festival information.

Full information is available here.

Picture: Ripon Theatre Festival director Katie Scott (right) is pictured with Charley Christopher, the Stray Ferret’s marketing, events and customer manager.

Read more:

• Look back at the 2023 Ripon Theatre Festival
• More green shoots on Ripon’s high street

ad id=”182[the_785″]

For the next few weeks, we’re introducing you to the team behind The Stray Ferret.

This time, we’re featuring Tim Flanagan, Ripon’s senior journalist.

With nearly two decades worth of experience covering news across the North Yorkshire region, Tim certainly is no stranger to breaking an exclusive story or two. 

His career began in 1977 at Ackrill Newspapers Group, where he quickly rose through the ranks to become chief reporter at the Harrogate Advertiser.  

Despite his patch always having covered Ripon, Harrogate and the surrounding areas, journalism has taken Tim to some unexpected places, in pursuit of stories. 

He said:

“In February 1983 I flew to the Falkland Islands and wrote a series of articles about the post-war rebuilding of runways and infrastructure being carried out by Ripon’s Royal Engineers.” 

After working for a time in public relations and corporate communications, he returned to reporting news when he joined The Stray Ferret in 2020 as a senior journalist.  

Primarily covering Ripon, Tim often jokes that he’s ‘the ferret on the ground’, utilising his knowledge as a resident to report on the pressing issues that matter to local people. 

He explained:

“I write stories in a fair and balanced way, covering all sides of an argument. This is important because the people I am writing about know me and I regularly see them while news gathering in the city.

“I am extremely fortunate to be the Ripon reporter in a city that punches above its weight in terms of news.”

 With a passion for community-led stories, he’s previously explored the changing nature of the high street and extensively covered every update surrounding the controversial Ripon Cathedral annexe development. 

Tim has extensively covered Ripon Cathedral annexe developments

While working for The Stray Ferret, he hasn’t had to make any more work trips abroad – but he’s still covered some international stories that have unlikely connections to North Yorkshire. 

Tim said:

“I was told by a very reliable contact that Lewis Edwards a Ripon man and former student of Ripon Grammar School was fleeing Kyiv with his partner Tanya and a group of friends and driving hundreds of miles to the safety of Slovakia.

“The first story I wrote was published on February 28 – four days after the invasion started – and I spoke with him to write real-time stories about the hazardous journey to the Slovakia border.

“What made this coverage even stronger, was the fact that Lewis’s family in Ripon set up a GoFundMe page that raised over £20,000 in donations used to pay for a humanitarian shelter set up at the Slovakia border to help fellow refugees following on behind them to find safety.”

 As one of the first journalists hired when The Stray Ferret was launched, Tim is particularly proud to be a part of the publication’s growth and development. 

He also expressed how much he likes working with the team, especially with the younger members so he can share his tips and tricks – although according to him, that’s ‘most of the other writers’.  

 He’s a lifelong resident of Yorkshire, and previously lived for 39 years in Harrogate, making him a passionate advocate for the area – indeed, he believes that Ripon has ‘some of the finest walks you will find anywhere’.  

Discussing how he spends his free time, Tim added:  

“Apart from walking with my wife, visiting Fountains and Studley Royal, spending time with the grandchildren and enjoying music dating back to the 1970s, I write poetry and have had poems selected for publication in the last three editions of the Ripon Poetry Festival anthology.”

If you think you’ve got a story that might be of interest to Tim, you can email him at tim@thestrayferret.co.uk. 

As the Stray Ferret enters its fourth year of providing the best media coverage of the Harrogate district, we have given our daily newsletter a makeover.

The newsletter provides a round-up of what our journalists have been up to. The new look makes it easier than ever to get a snapshot of what is happening, with links to all the articles.

It includes a nightly introduction from Stray Ferret editor John Plummer as well as a round up of our daily news content, plus Photo of the Week, lifestyle features and in-depth topics.

Mr Plummer said:

“We hope the fresh new look appeals to readers. We are very grateful to everyone who reads the Stray Ferret and hope you continue to support independent local journalism in 2024.”

You can sign up here to the newsletter to keep up to date and get the latest news straight to your inbox.

Read more:

• £300,000 upgrade of The Woodlands in Harrogate to begin next week
• Harrogate trains cancelled as flood threat remains
• What has happened to Knaresborough’s new £6 million primary school?

Excellence deserves to be recognised and celebrated. The 2024 Stray Ferret Business Awards is the event to put your business, people or great initiative in the spotlight!

Make the most of your efforts by reading our top 10 tips for writing your submission for success.

Entries close on January 19, 2024.

Harrogate businesses collect chocolate for people in need

Businesses on Harrogate’s Commercial Street are asking local people to donate chocolate to people in need this Christmas.

The Christmas Chocolate Collection, which collected more than 20 stone of chocolate last year, hopes to donate even more chocolate to local charities this year.

These include Harrogate District Foodbank, Disability Action Yorkshire, Supporting Older People, Harrogate Hospital and Community Charity and New Beginnings.

Lilly’s Café, Curtain and Blind Design, the Harrogate Town shop, Ben Barbers and White Rose Sewing are all taking part in the initiative and chocolate can be donated instore.

Sue Kramer, owner of Crown Jewellers of Harrogate, said:

“What resonates with this is that it is collecting chocolate items for local people who may not otherwise be able to enjoy some chocolate at Christmas.

“It’s very easy, simply buying an extra packet of biscuits or a box of chocolates or anything chocolatey provided it does not have alcohol in and dropping them off on commercial street at one of our five drop-off points.”

The initiative will continue until Saturday, December 15.

The Stray Ferret needs your help

Do you want more local business news on the Stray Ferret? What sort of stories do you think we should be covering?

As the Stray Ferret approaches our four-year anniversary, we want to thank our readers and followers for your continued support of our news service.

We are continually looking to improve and we’d like to know more about our readers – please help us.

Click here to fill in a short survey – it will only take a few minutes to complete.

The survey is anonymous, however, if you’d like to be included in our Bettys Christmas Hamper Draw, please submit your email.

Thank you.

Read more:

• Business Breakfast: Ripon bucks national footfall trend – data
• Business Breakfast: Harrogate BID appoints communications officer
• Business Breakfast: Harrogate carbon accounting firm makes two new hires

The Stray Ferret is to launch a daily business news feature for the Harrogate district.

Business Breakfast will start tomorrow and be published every weekday at 5am. It will bring together all business information for the district including appointments, contracts, awards and financial performance news.

Later this week, The Stray Ferret will celebrate its second birthday – it launched just before the first lockdown in March 2020 at a time when local businesses were in turmoil as shops and venues closed and everyone left the office to work from home.

The Stray Ferret director Tamsin O’Brien says, as the district slowly returns to normality, now is the time to produce a comprehensive roundup of daily business news.

She said:

“During the first two years of our existence we were preoccupied with covering the covid pandemic in the best way we could for the district. We reported continually on how the crisis impacted on businesses and the local economy.

“Now that we’re coming out of covid, we wanted to create a daily round-up of all local business news that we hope will become a must-read before work.”

Since its launch the Stray Ferret has seen rapid growth. In January this year the website had 210,000 readers and more than a million pages were viewed. It has a highly engaged social media following of more than 23,000 people and in December The Stray Ferret app was launched which already has 3,000 regular users.

If you would like your businesses’ news to be included — send us the information to contact@thestrayferret.co.uk

Read more:

• Sneak Peek: Boroughbridge pub reopens after six-figure refurb
• Harrogate distillery wins RHS branded drinks licence

The Stray Ferret has been shortlisted for Website of the Year in the Society of Editors’ 2020 Regional Press Awards. 

The digital news service for the Harrogate district is one of seven websites in contention for the award.

The awards are widely regarded as the newspaper industry’s most prestigious. The winner will be revealed on September 16.

The Stray Ferret launched online at the onset of the covid pandemic in March last year and now has built a loyal audience with around 700,000 page views a month.

Our investigations have included, amongst others, the total cost of Harrogate Borough Council’s new offices, exposing a culture of secrecy at the authority, the shoddy work of a local “builder” and exposing how a Harrogate hotelier held an illegal New Year’s Eve party during lockdown.

Read more:

• True cost of civic centre was £17m
• Women ripped off by ‘shoddy’ Harrogate builder
• Claims well-known Harrogate hotelier held illegal New Year’s Eve party
• Investigation: Shocking number of council papers withheld from public

Tamsin O’Brien, editor of the Stray Ferret, said:

“I am immensely proud that the Stray Ferret has been shortlisted for such a prestigious journalism award. We have worked very hard since we launched 18 months ago to bring quality local news to the people of the Harrogate district.

 “We have done our absolute best to cover the issues that people care about whether that be new housing developments to political devolution and, of course, the impact of covid which has dominated the news agenda since we started.

 “Since we launched we have broken many news stories. The Stray Ferret exists for local people as the place to go for local information and as a platform for debate – it’s fantastic that our work has been recognised by the wider news industry.”

As 2020 draws to a close, the Stray Ferret looks at the news stories that stood out among a year of extraordinary events. 

Today, we look back on some of the highlights of the year when, amid the bleak events, the spirit of the community and individual strength shone through. 

After facing a disrupted end to his school life and an uncertain path ahead, 18-year-old Morgan Glazier decided to set himself a challenge.  

Raising money for mental health charity Mind, he completed a mile to correspond with the date of every day in June. After one mile on the first, two miles on the second and so on, he finished 30 miles on June 30, totalling an incredible 465 miles in the month. 

As a result, he raised more than £9,000 for a charity close to his heart. 

Also raising money, but for a completely different reason, was former Harrogate Grammar School student Harry Pritchard. 

He had secured a place at the prestigious LAMDA drama school in London, but with fees of almost £14,000 feared he would be unable to take it up. Friends and family rallied around – but when Hollywood star Russell Crowe shared the campaign, the money rolled in. 

For football fans, meanwhile, the crowning achievement of the year was Harrogate Town securing promotion to the football league for the first time. They may not have been able to be there for the 3-1 win over Notts County at Wembley, but fans were able to enjoy the occasion when the team held an open top bus parade through town on their return. 

Photo: Matt Kirkham, Harrogate Town

The football season was able to conclude after a delay during the first lockdown – but many events were not able to proceed as planned. However, communities united to ensure the important dates did not go by unmarked. 

VE Day was a highlight for many, with socially-distanced street parties held across the district. From scarecrows telling a village’s war stories to Ripon Cathedral lit up in red, white and blue, there were plenty of celebrations despite continuing restrictions. 

A special delivery of fish and chips was sent to residents of a Starbeck care home by Drake’s Fisheries, while a war veteran was toasted by his neighbours, who were determined to make him the guest of honour at their celebrations. 

Jack Rushton

For the Stray Ferret, 2020 saw us launch our news site as the pandemic reached the UK in March. Our audience has grown enormously in the last 10 months, and we’re grateful to everyone who has got in touch, told us their story or shared their concerns.  

As the new year approaches, we’re as determined as ever to bring you the most important stories from across the Harrogate district, as well as those chinks of happiness in what can often seem a very gloomy world.  

Please do keep in touch with us about anything you think we should know – you can email our news team at contact@thestrayferret.co.uk or call us on 01423 276197. And keep following us for the latest news as it happens via our website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, Instagram or LinkedIn. 

Thank you for your support in 2020. We wish all our readers a healthy and happy new year.