The Environment Agency has urged people in Pannal and Burn Bridge to act now to avoid the impact of flooding.

The government agency issued a flood warning for areas alongside the River Crimple at 4.14am this morning.

Flood warnings are more severe than flood alerts and indicate flooding is imminent.

It said:

“River levels are rising rapidly on the River Nidd due to rainfall associated with Storm Babet.

“Areas most at risk include properties on Station Road, Malthouse Lane and Crimple Meadows. Further rainfall is expected throughout the day.

“Our incident room is open and we are closely monitoring the situation.”

A less severe flood alert has been issued for the Upper Nidd Catchment area (see above).

Rain is predicted all day before drier weather tomorrow.

The Environment Agency said:

“Avoid using low lying footpaths and any bridges near local watercourses and do not attempt to walk or drive through flood water.”

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What to do if you get a flood warning

This is the Environment Agency advice.

A flood warning means you need to act: flooding is expected. You should do all the actions for a flood alert, but also:

• move vehicles to higher ground if it’s safe to do so
• move family and pets to safety
• move important items upstairs or to a safe place in your property, starting with cherished items and valuables, then furniture and furnishings
• turn off gas, electricity and water supplies if it’s safe to do so; never touch an electrical switch if you’re standing in water
• if you have property protection products such as flood barriers, or air brick covers, use them now
• keep track of the latest flood risk situation

Councillors have approved a variation of Crimple’s alcohol licence so the venue can serve alcohol and offer live music until 2am on weekends.

The garden centre on Leeds Road near Pannal had a multi-million-pound makeover in 2021 and now offers a food hall, restaurant, and space for weddings and other events.

North Yorkshire Council’s sub-licensing committee met in Harrogate this morning to consider the application.

Licensee Tori Watson told councillors that varying the licence from its current cut off of 11.30pm would allow the business to provide an extended bar service at weddings and for bands and DJs to play later into the night.

Mrs Watson said:

“We hold a lot of events and it’s becoming more and more popular as our reputation has grown.

“It won’t be for every Friday and Saturday, it’s just we get enquiries for weddings and they say can we have bar open until 1.30am or 2am. It allows us to say, ‘yes we can’.

“We’re not trying to open some late night venue with partying.”

Licensee Tori Watson

Councillors heard there has been one noise complaint at the venue in the last nine years which came in 2021 but was found to be unsubstantiated.

However, the application has received several objections on noise grounds, including one from Pannal and Burn Bridge Parish Council on behalf of residents living at the nearby All Saints Court in Pannal.

Parish councillor Howard West said:

“The problem is people who live in All Saints Court. They are not a complaining bunch of people but if there’s a nuisance sound after 11.30pm they would have no idea who to communicate to at that time of day.”

However, the Conservative chair of the committee, Cllr Tim Grogan, queried why none of the residents had gone to the premises to complain in person. He said:

“If I’d have been living there and was discomfitted by the noise I’d be knocking on the door to say ‘turn this down’, but I can’t speak for other people.”

Mr West also read out a statement on behalf of Dunkeswick wedding venue Wharfedale Grange, which said it was forced by the council to spend £750,000 on sound proofing in order to offer live music.

It said it was “extremely disappointing” that Crimple’s application could be considered without similar noise mitigation requests.

The committee of three councillors ultimately voted to approve the licence. They imposed conditions preventing customers from using the rear terrace after 10pm, ensuring loud speakers are not used outside, and requiring all windows and doors to be closed when entertainment is taking place.

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Firefighters and paramedics rescued a person who was trapped following a two-car collision in Pannal today.

The crash happened on the main A61 at about 10.30am.

North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service’s incident report said crews from Harrogate and Knaresborough responded to the collision, which involved a Range Rover and a Mazda.

It added:

“Male occupant of Range Rover was not trapped or injured.

“Two occupants in Mazda, one of which was trapped. Released by fire crews under paramedic supervision and taken to hospital with minor back and hip injuries.”

Firefighters made the vehicles safe and left the incident with police.

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The sales manager of BMW dealership near Harrogate was unfairly dismissed after selling a car against money laundering guidance, a tribunal has found.

James Dent was employed as head of sales at Stratstone BMW in Pannal until last September, when he was dismissed without notice from his job.

It followed the sale of a vehicle on September 1, which a tribunal in Leeds heard was one of the busiest trading days of the year, when new registrations were released.

A report from the tribunal, published yesterday, found Mr Dent had been asked not to hand over a new car to a customer on the “red list”, which indicated a third party was paying for the vehicle.

The list had been compiled after the company was contacted by police the previous day in relation to another buyer who was involved in criminal activity.

The tribunal was told a third-party funder was also seen as a risk for re-sale – when another garage which sells the car on at an inflated price. If the Harrogate dealership was found to have sold in these circumstances, it could lose its franchise with BMW and Mini, the hearing was told.

After an investigation, Mr Dent was told by Stratstone’s national franchise director for BMW and Mini, Anthony Partington, in a letter dated September 16, that he had been dismissed.

In the tribunal report, Judge Knowles wrote:

“The letter is effectively dismissal for decisions which place the respondent at risk of being knowingly involved with money laundering and also knowingly selling to resellers, exposing the franchise to possible penalties and his inability to follow a simple instruction from his regional director.”

The court heard Mr Dent had argued he was following a similar sale he had witnessed, when the regional sales director had effectively sold a car to a third party against company policy.

However, the tribunal found there were some differences between the two cases, including that the third party paying for the car was present during the transaction, though someone else collected the keys.

In his case, Mr Dent had not sought approval from a senior director before handing over the keys to someone when a third party, who was not present, was paying for the car.

‘Grave mistake’

Judge Knowles wrote:

“The claimant did not underestimate that he had done something seriously wrong. He described it as a wrong judgment on something that was high priority. He acknowledged that he overlooked the fact that they were not delivering the car to the paying customer.

“The claimant’s concluding comments were ‘I’d like to make it plain that I have not set out to deliberately contravene the company’s policy or risk myself or the company. I have made a grave mistake… but I’ve had a busy stressful day and I’ve made a poor judgement in the heat of the moment’.

“The claimant explained some circumstances in mitigation, that he had been busy that day, and that he had dealt with an extremely aggressive customer earlier who had been unhappy with the cleanliness of his new vehicle. He says his mind was elsewhere.”

The judge found there was no dispute between Mr Dent or his employer over whether the transaction had taken place on September 1.

However, what was disputed was the way in which the investigation was carried out.

Mr Partington’s letter made reference to other matters coming to light which showed “huge potential risk” to Stratstone, a trading name of Pendragon PLC.

Judge Knowles found these other matters had not been shared with Mr Dent during the disciplinary process and were not detailed in the dismissal letter.

‘Conscious decision’

In the letter, Mr Partington concluded:

“Finally, I can clearly see in the hearing, and throughout the relationship I have had with you, that the decisions made here are very unlikely to have been made for personal gain, or to knowingly de-fraud or compromise the business.

“Your attitude and approach has always proved to be professional and your commitment to the business is clear.”

Yet when Mr Dent appealed the decision and was unsuccessful, he was found to have “made a conscious decision to not follow clear instruction from your leader, and allowed the business to be put at risk by acting above your authority”.

The tribunal report also found the investigation into the regional sales director’s transaction, cited by Mr Dent as another example of a similar sale, had not been fully investigated.

Leeds Employment Tribunal at City Exchange in Leeds City Centre

Mr Dent said the real reason for his dismissal was because of the risk to the Harrogate garage of being known to have sold cars that were being paid for by third parties.

However, in response Stratstone BMW told the tribunal Mr Dent had been fully aware of the risk of releasing the car to the man in question, having helped to identify potential suspect transactions for that day.

The company said Mr Dent “acted contrary to clear management instructions” not to release the car, and accepted doing so warranted “some level of disciplinary action”, even dismissal.

Judge Knowles agreed that Mr Dent had handed the car over in contravention of the instructions he had been given.

Yet the report also found there was no evidence this was “deliberate” and that this had only been suggested following his appeal rather than as part of the disciplinary process.

It also found the “wider issues” had only been mentioned after the appeal, in the letter confirming Mr Dent’s dismissal, and no such issues had been put to him.

‘Hurdles to be cleared’

Concluding, Judge Knowles said that while the process of the dismissal had been unfair, Mr Dent’s actions meant he had been “wholly to blame for his dismissal”.

The judge therefore found Mr Dent had been unfairly dismissed, but had not been wrongly dismissed, and was not due any compensation in lieu of notice.

The report also said:

“Worryingly the anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing policy and related security processes seem to have been treated by both [Mr Dent] and the [regional sales director] simply as hurdles to be cleared. This makes the policy somewhat of a false dawn.

“I suspect that this… will be an uncomfortable read for the board and its audit and risk sub-committee who have clearly sponsored and approved the policy.”

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A decision on controversial plans for houses near a busy road in south Harrogate has been delayed.

North Yorkshire Council had set a target date of yesterday for determining the plans for 17 homes in the Crimple Valley.

However, it has now confirmed the decision will not be made this week.

The council’s assistant director for planning, Trevor Watson, said:

“Our consideration of this application remains ongoing and will not be resolved in time to determine it this week.

“We are nevertheless committed to issuing a decision on the application as soon as is practicable and have informed the applicant of this.”

The plans for seven affordable homes and 10 self-build plots have attracted more than 350 objections from residents.

They focused on the location of the site in the Crimple Valley special landscape area, as well as access to the new homes from the A61 at the bottom of Almsford Bank.

The council’s highways department has also raised concerns about the applicant’s proposal to reduce the speed limit to 40mph between Pannal and Harrogate.

A previous application for 35 homes on the land was rejected by Harrogate Borough Council, whose local plan guiding development in the area did not include the site.

Plans submitted in 2019 for 35 homes were withdrawn, as was a scheme for 65 houses put forward in 2018.

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An apartment block that will replace the now-demolished Dunlopillo offices in Pannal is beginning to take shape.

Plans submitted by Echo Green Developments to build 38 flats on the site at Station Road were approved by Harrogate Borough Council in February 2022.

However, it will be two-storeys taller than the previous structure which led to ill feeling in the village. Pannal historian Anne Smith said residents would be lumbered with a “skyscraper-type building”.

The decision to approve the scheme was made at officer level and without a vote from councillors.

The frame of the new building.

This provoked Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough Andrew Jones to say the now-abolished council made a mistake with the process by not putting the application before the planning committee.

But the plans weren’t considered by councillors because the application was made under permitted development rights, which were brought in under the Conservative government and can be used by developers to fast track the redevelopment of disused offices.

Cllr Howard West, chairman of Pannal and Burn Bridge Parish Council, said at the time that planning officers “made errors” and that the parish council had written to the government about it.

Read more:

• Plans approved for 38 flats at ‘Pannal skyscraper’
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How the building will eventually look.

It ultimately led Harrogate Borough Council to launch an internal review into how it handled the application.

The review found it should have acted quicker and a “longer period of time than ideal” was spent on parts of the process.

It also said residents should have been consulted sooner and this could have allowed time for a vote from councillors. Despite this, the council concluded the plans were still “appropriately considered”.

The former Dunlopillo building

Dunlopillo – which makes pillows and bedding – moved out of the site in 2008 when the company went into administration and its former office building fell into disrepair, with residents describing it as a “monstrosity”.

Other parts of the vast site have or currently are being redeveloped, including the construction of the Vida Hall Care Home which opened in 2013 and a residential development by Bellway Homes.

An independent vets is set to open in Pannal after plans were approved.

Claro Hill Vets will be based at Thirkill Park, off Thirkill Drive.

The practice will open this autumn and employ two veterinarians and receptionists.

Laura Keyser, who has been a qualified vet for 15 years, is behind the new business which she says will be a “perfect location” for pet owners in Harrogate, Wetherby and north Leeds.

She told the Stray Ferret:

“I decided to open the business as I wanted to offer a real high standard of care and service.

“We are independent, so have none of the constraints of being corporate.”

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Claro Hill will initially be open to dogs and cats and offer a first opinion service, which includes vaccinations.

However, the practice will also offer a CT scanner and have visiting surgeons, ophthalmologists, and cardiologists.

Ms Keyser added:

“We will offer the middle ground between your GP vet and referral elsewhere, but also have the option of referral to a fantastic local hospital if required.”

 The move to open the business comes as North Yorkshire Council approved the proposal.

Work on the new vets, which will be based in two industrial units off Thrikill Drive, is expected to take three months.

A village nursery near Harrogate has received praise from Ofsted for the way it encourages children to develop their independence.

The School House Nursery in Pannal was also found to be a “welcoming” environment where children felt “safe and secure” when inspector Jennifer Cowton visited.

Rating the nursery ‘good’ in all areas in a report published this week, she said:

“Children know what is expected of them and follow the boundaries and routines of the setting well. They enjoy playing alongside each other and understand the importance of sharing and taking turns.

“Staff act as positive role models and encourage children to be kind. They speak to children in a calming manner, and carefully consider and respect children’s views and opinions.”

During the inspection, which took place at the end of March, Ms Cowton said children were “well prepared for their next stage in learning”, being encouraged to do as much as possible for themselves.

Children benefitted from learning about the natural world through growing flowers and feeding wildlife, she found.

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The report said the nursery, which is part of Kids at Heart based near Knaresborough, helped children to learn about good health, as well as offering a menu of freshly-cooked, healthy meals and snacks.

Ms Cowton said:

“Parents speak highly of the nursery. They say that their children love attending and arrive happy and smiling.

“Staff share information with parents about their children’s learning experiences through daily conversations. In addition, they share photographs of children’s activities using an online application.

“Parents are encouraged to contribute to their children’s learning and support their learning at home. Staff provide parents with activity ideas.”

The report found that, while staff understood how to support children’s language development, they could do more to model language to younger children while playing.

It also recommended the nursery manager could make better use of observation and supervision to help staff develop their teaching.

Responding to the report, Julie Shaw, owner of Kids at Heart, said:

“I would like to say how delighted I am with our Ofsted report. I feel it truly reflects the hard work, dedication, and commitment of the staff team at The School House Nursery, Pannal.

“I would also like to say a massive thank you to the wonderful children (who are amazing) and their parents for all their supportive comments, not only on the inspection day, but on an on-going basis.”

Pannal Cricket Club has launched a £20,000 campaign to replace its ageing nets and enable its members to improve their game.

Under the title ‘Netfix’, the club is offering rewards to supporters ranging from branded caps and popular pies to a hospitality day when Headingley hosts the Ashes this year.

With almost 300 members across its junior and senior teams, committee member Andy Herridge said the club is keen to ensure it offers the best facilities.

“We’ve really needed some new nets for the last couple of years. They’ve got holes in and have just been used and abused. The storm damage we had over winter just finished them off this year.

“We can only use one of the sides for the juniors and the seniors can’t practice in it now – it can’t take the force of a senior’s ball.”

Mr Herridge said the club has already received a £10,000 grant for the nets from the England and Wales Cricket Board and had saved some funds in recent years to put towards the project.

The £20,000 crowdfunder will ensure there is enough in the put to complete the replacement, and almost a quarter of the money has already been raised.

The club has even put together a promotional video to explain the benefits of the new nets.

Mr Herridge said the rewards on offer had also proved popular:

“They’ve been really well received and we’re asking anybody else who can put in a reward for a pledge to contact us, even if it’s local restaurants or bars for 10% or even 5% off a bill, that we can offer for small amounts – £10, £15, £20.

“We’re all volunteers and we all work full time, so it’s really hard to spend the time going round getting everything done.

“We’re doing some events on evenings to add to the fundraising. One of our players, Mo, is a Methodist minister and he’s going to cook curries for a curry night that we can sell tickets for.

“We’re keen to try and make the events as relaxed as possible so everyone has fun.”

Pannal CC was established in the late 19th century and has been based between Pannal and Burn Bridge, on Burn Bridge Lane, since 1918.

It has been part of the Nidderdale League since 1972, and is also part of the York Senior League and Harrogate Evening League.

Mr Herridge said it costs around £25,000 a year to run the club, which has almost 300 members from age five upwards. They include girls’ teams, who often play against boys and mixed teams because there are so few other girls’ teams in the local league.

As well as membership fees, the club’s covers its costs through sponsorships from local businesses.

To donate to the Netfix crowdfunder, click here.

A six-week consultation on a neighbourhood plan which will guide development in Pannal and Burn Bridge is underway.

The consultation is the last chance for local people to have their say on how the area around the two villages will be shaped going forward.

The Pannal and Burn Bridge Neighbourhood Plan, which was drawn up by the local parish council shortly after it was created in 2016, is the first such document sent out for consultation by the new North Yorkshire Council.

If approved, it will be considered alongside in all future planning applications — although it can be overruled.

It has already been the subject of local surveys – but this new consultation is the last before it goes for independent examination.

Those surveys aimed to ensure the plan reflects aspirations and concerns and showed that green area conservation was a prime factor, along with the need to address traffic pollution and parking congestion around the school.

Pannal and Burn Bridge Parish Council chair Howard West said:

“We realise the villages need to grow, but we trust that any future development will be in keeping with the local area.

“We want to retain and cherish the rural character of our villages while still catering for our future employment and residential needs. Village protection is at the heart of this plan and we urge people to make sure they have had their say.”

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North Yorkshire Council’s Conservative executive member for open to business, Cllr Derek Bastiman (pictured above), said:

“Neighbourhood plans are an important part of the planning process, allowing communities to help shape their area and therefore guide future developments.

“North Yorkshire Council has to consult on the plan the parish council has submitted and we are calling on people to express their views before it goes for final examination.”

The consultation runs until Wednesday, May 31. The documents and comment forms are available here and representations can be submitted online.

Alternatively, the comment form can be downloaded and comments sent to PlanPolicy.har@northyorks.gov.uk or Planning Policy, North Yorkshire Council, PO Box 787, Harrogate HG1 9RW.

Updates and information on earlier stages of preparing the plan can be found here.