Lib Dems 'game changing' plea for £176,000 cash levy from Harrogate Spring Water to be given back to town

When Harrogate Town Council convenes for the first time next month after the election on May 1, its budget for 2025/26 of £362,000 means its role will be limited after it pays for costs and staff.

But Harrogate’s Lib Dem MP Tom Gordon is backing his local party’s call for North Yorkshire Council to ensure the money earnt from Harrogate Spring Water’s use of the name “Harrogate” comes back to the town.

The levy on the bottled water company, estimated at £176,806 per year, formerly went to Harrogate Borough Council until the latter was abolished and taken over by North Yorkshire Council.

Harrogate’s Lib Dems believe that the money should be given to the new Harrogate Town Council, in the form of a “Harrogate Fund”, rather than the money simply falling into North Yorkshire’s coffers.

If that was to happen, they add, it would at a stroke result in a potentially game-changing 48.84% increase in Harrogate Town Council’s annual budget.

Mr Gordon said he has now written to Coun Carl Les, Leader of North Yorkshire Council, urging him to ensure that the money earnt from Harrogate Spring Water is spent in Harrogate.

"I’ve written to Carl Les because this money must be returned to Harrogate, not hidden away by North Yorkshire Council,” said the MP.

"Harrogate is earning this money, and should see the benefit of it.

“While there was no Harrogate council to receive the money, of course, it went to North Yorkshire.

"But now it is time for the money to return to Harrogate.

"That’s why I’m adding my voice to the local Lib Dems calling for this money to be returned.

“There is no logical reason for North Yorkshire Council continuing to receive this money, and being able to indiscriminately spend it across North Yorkshire.”

The idea the the levy on a water company for using the word Harrogate – and what is more quintessentially ‘Harrogate’ than water and its spa heritage – may, perhaps, be the most meaningful moment in a campaign beset by the sort of tit-for-tat controversies which emerged in a non-Harrogate way in the year before the General Election.

Reform UK's accusation of "misleading leaflets" by the Lib Dems over opinion polls, the uproar over one Tory candidate's alleged past "homophobia".

The battle to take control of the new Harrogate Council may, on paper, be of less importance in the grand scheme of things than who runs North Yorkshire Council.

But that fails to explain why the four main parties are taking the election so seriously.

All of the rival contenders say they want to stand up for Harrogate’s interests, to different degrees, even though Harrogate Town Council will lack the budget or powers in its first year to enable them to do much about it.

This is really a battle about the future and how that future will play out.

It’s significant that Harrogate Green Party is emphasising that there are no current North Yorkshire Councillors among its candidates, unlike the Tories who are fielding a member of the NYC’s executive and the Libs, whose NYC councillor is not in power at Northallerton.

The Greens say simply: "Harrogate Town Council must be independent of North Yorkshire Council, so it must have dedicated Town councillors making decisions about Harrogate, without influence from North Yorkshire Council.”