What is best for Harrogate: Plotting a brighter direction for the town in uncertain times

Concern in the town over its general direction and the future of its ‘heritage assets’ such as the Royal Hall has grown since a larger and more powerful North Yorkshire Council emerged from the ‘big bang’ of major local government reorganisation in April 2023.

Politics abhors a vacuum but Harrogate’s voice has not been silent since the demise of Harrogate Borough Council.

Even as North Yorkshire Council consults the public on the creation of a new Harrogate Town Council next year, Harrogate community groups, politicians and residents organisations are working on their own positive visions of what the town’s future could be and what a town council might do to support that progress.

The question is whether at a time of massive budget shortfalls in local government and an expanding list of competing priorities whether Harrogate will be able to create its own agenda.

Harrogate's Charter Mayor Chris Aldred called recently for the prospective new town council to be given responsibility for a range of assets in the public realm.

Citing a new weekly market for Harrogate as one possible idea, the the Liberal Democrat county councillor for High Harrogate and Kingsley, said: “Elsewhere town councils are providing parks and playgrounds, other sports facilities indoor and outdoor, car parks, public conveniences, public realm improvements like benches, street lighting, a regular events programme, grants to voluntary organisations, arts venues, town ambassadors, town rangers or enforcement officers and town criers.”

But others in the town are thinking even more deeply about where Harrogate will stand in the new political landscape of North Yorkshire.

Earlier this month, representatives of Harrogate Town Plan Forum attended a meeting with six officers from North Yorkshire Council to discuss its application to for the legal status to produce a statutory Neighbourhood Plan for Harrogate.

The plan, should it happen, would guide the new town council on the deeper issues at the heart of Harrogate.

The hard-working group, led by Harrogate Civic Society and Zero Carbon Harrogate, aims to set the parameters of how decisions will be made over issues including:

Housing

Economic development, culture and tourism

Retail and town centres

The built environment

The natural environment

Recreation and open space

Transportation

Community facilities and infrastructure

Climate change and flooding, waste.

Others are also looking at the bigger picture and imaging a new renaissance for Harrogate built on health and heritage.

A landmark workshop was held by Harrogate Vision Partnership in Harrogate recently entitled Growing the 21st Century Spa Town.

Organised by founder George Eglese, an associate of the Institute of Place Management and local business owner, and Sarah Lonsdale, project manager for river enhancement at the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust (YDRT), there were more than 30 attendees including senior officers from North Yorkshire Council’s Regeneration and Parks teams, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water, and Leeds University, as well as representatives from heritage, environmental, and community groups, including Long Lands Common and the Nidd Action Group.

“We’re not just another group talking about a vision for Harrogate’s future,” said Mr Eglese.

"We’re building something transformative — a new delivery vehicle to position Harrogate as the 21st Century Spa Town.

"It’s about looking at our heritage through a bold, modern lens, and creating a living, breathing ecosystem of culture, nature, and wellness.”

With less than a year to go until the launch of Harrogate’s first town council in living memory, the clock is ticking until the key decision have to be taken.

Having consulted widely across Harrogate over the last 12 months, Harrogate Town Plan Forum’s Management Group now intends to concentrate on one subject at a time, beginning with the Local Economy, followed by Transport and Housing.

But it faces a race against time.

In order to establish any sort of relationship with Harrogate Town Council, it has set itself a tight deadline of producing a report with recommendations for the new town council before elections are held in May 2025.

Stuart Holland, Interim Chair, of Harrogate Town Plan Forum, said: “The report to the town council can only include work completed up to March 2025.

"To complete the process will rely on the release of evidence from North Yorkshire Council

"This is a challenging timetable and may mean the initial work of identifying objectives may not be completed before the report has to be finalised."

The waters are muddied further by the fact that North Yorkshire Council has yet to decide on the precise nature of a new Harrogate Town Council.

What is known is that it will be made up of 19 councillors and is likely to mean Harrogate residents paying parish precept of between £40 and £60 a year, or around £1 a week.

Everything is still to play for but, despite the best efforts of members of Harrogate Town Plan Forum, everything is also still up in the air.

It’s far from impossible that the new Harrogate Town Council might reject the whole idea of a Neighbourhood Plan or may choose to adopt its own ideas.

What it decides to do will depend partly on its political make-up – will it be run by a disparate group of independent candidates or members of the Lib Dems or Conservatives – and partly on the powers and responsibilities granted to it by North Yorkshire Council.

Now entering its second year of delivering essential local services for the entire county, North Yorkshire Council has plenty of difficult decisions on its plate.

It faces a £28 million budget shortfall which will rise to £48 million within a year, despite savings from last year’s local government reorganisation.

Perhaps that is part of the reason important Harrogate assets such as Harrogate Theatre and Harrogate Convention Centre are still waiting to discover exactly what the county council’s new cultural strategy will mean for them.

Harrogate is a proud town, one with the experience, history and talent to direct its own future.

With so many questions still to be answered, can it find a way through to a brighter new day?