Heavy-duty machinery and plenty of workers are on the Stray as part of drainage and reseeding works to restore the park.
Harrogate Borough Council estimates that the work will cost close to £130,000 and that it will be complete by this September.
Yorkshire 2019, the organisers of the UCI Road World Championships, has agreed to pay £35,500 to help restore the Stray.
However, two local contractors have criticised the council for outsourcing the work to Glendale Services.
The Stray Ferret can reveal that Harrogate Borough Council will spend more than £200,000 on the Stray’s restoration after the 2019 UCI Road World Championships.
The council confirmed it has set aside “revenue expenditure of £150,000 or more” this financial year for the work. That’s on top of the £51,000 it had already spent up to the end of January this year.
Lawnmowers are out on the Stray today with scarifying and re-seeding work starting this week. The restoration work is set to continue until autumn – a year on from when the championships started.
One thing that is unclear is who will foot the restoration bill. It could be Harrogate Borough Council and so ultimately the council taxpayers, Yorkshire 2019 Ltd which was set up to run the event, or their insurers.
The Stray in March this year
What has the council done to restore the Stray?
By the end of January, the council had spent £51,000 on repair work, re-seeding on the West Park section and installing protective netting.
As of February, it had repaired damaged verges, restored bedding, repaired and opened all footpaths, and installed netting around waterlogged and unsafe areas.
The council has not released details of its restoration work since then or exactly what the £150,000 will be spent on. When asked for an update on progress, a council spokesperson said:
“We are addressing the historical drainage issues in the top corner of West Park Stray as well as re-seeding work.”
As well as repairing the damage, the work could include addressing the long-standing problem of flooding on West Park Stray, particularly if future events are being considered. Although, the council has said it is not taking bookings for the Stray until 2021.
The Stray back in October after the championships. Photo: The Stray Defence Association
The Stray Defence Association (SDA) has safeguarded the Stray since it formed in 1933 and was particularly outspoken when the UCI Road World Championships devastated the grounds.
While the SDA says it is sympathetic to council employees for the criticism they have received, it has been dedicated to pushing the council for answers and action ever since the championships.
Judy D’Arcy Thompson, from the SDA, told The Stray Ferret:
“I would venture to suggest that, understandably, whilst many will be angered that the SDA, or anyone, is taking an interest in the restoration of West Park Stray during the current exceptional circumstances, there are many who do wish to know. If nothing else, its renovation would make exercise and social distancing easier and, hopefully, there will be a time in the not too distant future when the people of Harrogate, especially the young footballers and school children, might also be able to use it freely again.”
Last year’s UCI Road World Championships in Harrogate brought thousands of visitors onto the Stray.
At the same time, heavy downpours arrived in Yorkshire. Anyone who knows Harrogate is familiar with the flooding along West Park which accompanies rainfall at least once a year. Add in heavy footfall and even heavier vehicles crossing the grass and the result was a quagmire, churning up the ground deep below the surface.
For the event, the timing could not have been worse. The state of the ground forced the organisers to close the fan park several times during the week. On the final day, the weather was so bad that the route of the race had to be changed and the helicopters were grounded, leaving the only television footage beamed around the world to be some very soggy shots from a motorbike behind the participants.
It was unsurprising, then, that the fan park was also closed a day ahead of schedule. Over the following days, the take-down of the event’s hub was much slower than planned because of the conditions – and the resulting damage to the Stray was gradually revealed.
What has been less obvious is where responsibility lies for the repairs. The question of who pays for the Stray has remained unanswered, with HBC insisting it would be Yorkshire 2019 or its insurers.
Yet investigations by The Stray Ferret have today revealed a £150,000 expenditure proposed by the council – on top of the £51,000 already paid out since the event. It confirms, for now at least, the work will be paid for by the people of the Harrogate district.
The 200 acres dividing us
Both physically and metaphorically, the Stray represents Harrogate. It’s the stunning open space for which the town is known – and, at the same time, it divides us perhaps like nothing else.
For many, it’s a valuable asset which must be protected at all costs. The damage done to it is unforgivable, not least because of the long-term impact it is having on our town – Harrogate in Bloom has declined to enter any competitions this year, young footballers and others can’t make use of the space, and the bright orange fencing is a constant reminder as people approach the town centre that this seven-month-old debate rumbles on.
For others, it’s just a patch of grass. The argument at the time was that it would soon re-grow in the spring, and that those complaining about the damage done should find something more important to occupy their time. After all, Harrogate had been shown off around the world thanks to the huge international event it had just hosted.
Wide stretches of land remain grass-free
Fast-forward from September to April and it is evident that the grass is not going to re-grow on its own. Significant work is needed – to the tune of £200,000 as revealed today by The Stray Ferret, and perhaps even more than that, according to one groundworks expert.
The question is not whether the event was worth the resulting damage – nor even whether it should have been foreseen. Rather, it’s whether sufficient provision was in place to protect taxpayers from having to fund the repairs.
Today’s revelation about expenditure confirms that taxpayers’ money will be used to carry out the work. That means at least £150,000 will have to be found from elsewhere in the council budget – at a time when, as it admitted last week, it faces a shortfall of £10m because of coronavirus.
With the warm weather helping to dry out the worst of the surface-level mud, now is the perfect time to begin repairing the damage, especially with such low footfall. But whether scarifying and re-seeding over the coming six months will return the Stray to its former glory – and whether there is any possibility of, or even appetite for, further events to come to Harrogate – remains to be seen.
Chinook lands on Harrogate’s Stray bringing senior NHS staff to Nightingale hospitalArmed forces brought senior NHS to Harrogate’s Nightingale Hospital after landing a Chinook helicopter on the Stray this afternoon.
It landed at around 1pm between Wetherby Road and Knaresborough Road, drawing onlookers as the occupants disembarked.
The Stray Ferret understands the helicopter was used to transport senior NHS staff to the temporary Nightingale hospital, which was officially opened on Tuesday via video link. At present, it is not being used to treat patients, but will remain available until needed.
Eyewitnesses reported that the visitors were taken by van towards Harrogate Convention Centre, before returning two hours later. After a number of people gathered to watch proceedings, officers from North Yorkshire Police arrived to ask them to move back and disperse.
The chinook helicopter left the Stray at around 3.30pm. The NHS Nightingale Yorkshire and the Humber had not responded to our request for more information about the visit at the time of publication.