Would you believe it ....

Something has been done about the so-called protective (i.e. hideous and possibly rather unsafe) matting on the Stray. A thick layer of sand has been laid over the bumpy bits and raked flat. I have no idea whether this is likely to be a long-term solution, or whether it's going to be safe, but it still feels like progress.

And this doesn't feel like progress - a neat little charred circle left by person or persons unknown who were obviously having a bonfire. OK, not a huge deal, like so many things that happen on the Stray, but it shouldn't happen. It's bad for the grass, a potential fire risk, and the more the legislation is ignored the harder it will be to enforce.

A really nice local pub

Local to the Stray, that is.

10 Devonshire Place, formerly the Devonshire Arms, is a delight. Candlelit tables, amazingly helpful staff, nice beer (I'm told it's nice, anyway - I'm not a beer drinker, but the wine was definitely drinkable). Yesterday evening they were serving Jamaican street food. I had jerk ribs with rice and peas and fried plantain (picture of plantain below). The others in our party had salt cod and ackee, jerk chicken, goat curry. All delicious. I don't think they serve food every night, but this is definitely worth looking out for.

http://whatpub.com/pubs/HAR/7698/10-devonshire-place-harrogate

It's not just grass and trees!

It's just occurred to me that I could spend a few happy hours trying out the various pubs and restaurants around the Stray, since they're an important part of the environment, not to say ambience (I really loathe that word but can't think of a better one).

So this evening, it's 10 Devonshire Place.

(Photograph from http://whatpub.com/pubs/HAR/7698/10-devonshire-place-harrogate)

I'll blog about it tomorrow. But just to be clear - I dont accept freebies or inducements or bribes or sweeteners or anything that might influence what I write. Not that people have exact;y been rushing to corrupt my judgment with blandishments ....

Remember this?

Depends on your vintage, but this is Chet Atkins playing "Windy and Warm" in the early 1960s. In the days when music was music ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NgVdbIdD8w

Windy and Warn was how the Stray was this evening. I couldn't find a way of photographing wind so here's one of Jacky Little's lovely summery pictures.

Harrogate Borough Council does a great job ...

... clearing litter on the Stray.

This was what it was like yesterday morning:

By evening it was all cleared away.

But it would be really, really great if they didn't have to do it. There are plenty of litter bins. I know it's probably just kids having a good time, but would it spoil their fun to take their beer cans and wrappers fifty yards to the nearest bin? I don't think so.

Here we go again

It was a lovely summer evening yesterday, families playing on the Stray, lots of cars parked on Oatlands Drive. You really can't blame them - it's not clear that you can't park there, and if other people are it seems completely reasonable to join in. And it's convenient.

So what's the solution? Having a rule that's not enforced is crazy, and risky. How about changing the rules to let people park there? But that messes up the verges and blocks the cycle lane.

Ideas please.

Doesn't look good, doesn't look safe

These are pictures of matting that was put down on the Stray to protect the grass from parked cars when the fair was here. Now it's starting to look as though the grass needs protection from matting rather than from the cars.

We have reported this four times and we are now assured by a Council Officer and a Councillor  (who has been very helpful) that it is going to be repaired. I hope it's soon. It isn't health and safety gone mad, it's a real risk to our Park Runners at the weekend and to the Fake Festival revellers a week on Saturday.

And it looks hideous.

Helicopter on the Stray this morning

I don't know what it's doing here, but maybe it shouldn't be?

or maybe it's OK? Of course it's Royals, so we'd better not complain too much ....

Stray Act 1985:

"S.6 (d) not more than 12 temporary encroachments in any year for the setting aside of part of the Stray for the landing and take-off of aircraft capable of descending or climbing vertically provided that such aircraft shall not be engaged in the public transport of passengers for hire or reward"


I don't see any temporary encroachments apart from a couple of people in high viz jackets. Do they count as encroachments?

And I wonder how many times the Air Ambulance lands, and how it relates to this helicopter?

Why on earth ... ?

...would anyone want to read a set of bye-laws? Well, have a look at them - they tell you an amazing amount about the Stray. I know they sound boring, but they're really not.

http://www.harrogate.gov.uk/pos/Documents/Harrogate%20Sites/StrayByelaws.pdf

And to cheer you up, or make your blood boil, depending on your point of view, here's another of Jacky Little's lovely pictures. She argues that there are far too many trees on the Stray and they obscure the long views which are characteristic of Harrogate. I quite like the trees, though I do see her point.

This is a view of Christchurch, though you'd hardly know it.

This is hard to believe ...

....but I went out on to the Stray earlier this evening, and there were NO CARS PARKED ON OATLANDS DRIVE. Went back twenty minutes later - still no cars. What's going on? Have I slipped through a wormhole in the space-time continuum?

So, since a picture of Oatlands Drive with no cars is even less enthralling than my usual photographs of parked cars on the Stray verges ....

... I've chosen two of Jacky Little's lovely photographs. They're designed to make you feel cooler on what has been a very, very hot day.

Why so few kinds of birds on the Stray?

Comment from Andrew Hart to my last post about grass cutting:

"Toni, I have a feeling that the "long areas" of grass will all disappear in the next few days! I hope I am wrong as in selected parts of the Stray they would add so much to the insect and small mammal habitat. I wish too we could see nesting boxes in place for birds, Tree Bumble Bees and Owls"

 Birds are good indicators of the health of an ecosystem. On the Stray there are fewer kinds of birds than you might expect in a lovely green area surrounded by suburban gardens - I mean birds that you can see commonly, not the occasional exciting visitor. Black headed gulls are always there (the one below is in its summer plumage - in winter they look a bit scruffier), and an occasional herring gull. Various corvids - magpies, rooks, crows, jackdaws. I've never seen a jay. Lots of blackbirds. This morning there were two mistle thrushes, though I've never seen or heard a song thrush (they're always singing in the Valley Gardens). Pigeons, obviously. Starlings, swallows. I haven't seen house martins. Kites are here increasingly often, which is great, and a very occasional green woodpecker. And I've seen sparrow hawks a couple of times. I'm sure there are more, but still not an amazing variety.

(not my photograph - provided by the internet - but a very good one. You can see clearly that they should be called brown-headed gulls, not black-headed!)

The Stray is not a great area for small birds, who tend to hang around in the gardens. I think it's too open and they're too exposed to predators. 

Have a look at the comment from the Pinewoods in response to my last post, Grass cutting time. It's very interesting, and very balanced.

There is an issue about how closely and how often the grass is cut. Leaving some areas uncut for quite a lot of the time is great for wildlife and I think it looks very attractive.

Of course, not everyone feels the same way!

Grass-cutting time

The Stray is looking beautiful. Harrogate Borough Council has done a great job cutting the grass and making everything look tidy. And it's done an even greater job of leaving some areas uncut, for wildlife, and to provide contrast, and probably to please some of us who aren't keen on having everything neat all the time,

And this is a picture of the graveyard at Christchurch on a sunny, windy summer's evening. It's here just because I like it.

Maybe we've become a nation of anarchists .....?

...because every single time I walk past Oatlands Drive there are cars parked on the verges. So, this morning:

I know it's not major criminal activity, but Jill's point (see previous post, "Is it OK to ignore the rules?") is well made - the thin end of the wedge is the start of a slippery slope or some other equally mixed metaphor.

Also, I don't really blame people for parking there, because unless you happen to read the Harrogate Borough Council website, it's not obvious that you shouldn't. There are double yellow lines along one side of Oatlands Drive - so clearly no parking - but just a cycle track and the grass verge of the Stray on the other side.

It needs to be made more obvious that you can't park, and it needs to be enforced. Even a polite note under the windscreens of the parked cars explaining the rules would be a start.

Is it OK to ignore the rules ....?

 The rules I'm talking about the the ones from the Stray Act and Byelaws, like no parking, no barbecues, no horses (pity!), no model aircraft, and so on. They're not major crimes, and they're ignored, by users of the Stray, by the local authority, by the police, literally on a daily basis. And I mean literally (not figuratively, in spite of the fact that the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary maintains that the two words are interchangeable  - but that's another rant).

On Streetlife Jill E has made an extremely effective case for the importance of enforcing rules of this kind. With her permission, I'm quoting here what she writes:

"Janet M above has identified what is already and will remain an increasingly pleaded potential Human Rights issue [allowing vehicles to park on the Stray verges].  From personal and professional experience down in Surrey, the more lax the local Parish/Town/Borough/County Council has been in enforcing existing regulations, the more difficult/time consuming/both it may be to remove campers/travellers, less serious but flagrant breaches having been previously ignored or tolerated....................I'm not commenting on whether that should or should not be the case, simply that it is.  Likewise, where previous breaches have been ignored, any eviction process can take very much longer.  There have been many well publicised cases where such process has literally lasted years.  For benefit of anyone out there eagerly awaiting our new Bill of Rights, suggest you don't hold your breath.....................!"

"Well, there's no getting away from fact of legal (yawn) life that nowadays when we fail to enforce what might appear to be very minor breaches of regulations re open land we do so at our peril.  In cases like The Stray (ditto village greens, National Trust land with which I've dealt in the past), where people can effectively set up home, the consequences can be very serious indeed and I don't think we consider these sufficiently seriously, if at all, until the worst happens.  If you care to look online (such a thrill, it's bound to distract you from Wimbledon!!) at how the eviction process works (if it works...........................), you'll appreciate that it's far from simply calling police/obtaining eviction order as is often supposed.  There are so many other factors which have to be taken into account in contested cases when considering whether or not to make such an order and when it should take effect, health and welfare of 'residents' for example, whether or not local council has complied with statutory obligation to provide sufficient travellers' sites, to name just a couple.  Having seen it from both sides of the coin, it really concerns me as soon as I see the slightest erosion of open spaces which could be residentially occupied.  It can and does happen and any Stray Act or its equivalent will always be subject to Human Rights Act.  I've never seen all the regulations but if it were down to me I wouldn't let any regulations go unenforced, I'm afraid.  I could bore for Britain on this but have seen it in practice...................."

We need to take notice of this. Thanks, Jill.

Well done, Harrogate Borough Council!!!

Lovely new white painted signs making it clear where people can and can't cycle.

This is going to make life a lot easier for those of us some way past the first flush of youth - we get a bit disconcerted by bikes whizzing up behind us on what we thought were footpaths.

Long views, spoilt views?

Trees are proving quite controversial. Some people like lots of them. Others think there are too many on the Stray, they are turning it into a forest and obliterating what is special about Harrogate.

Here are a few photographs as illustration (and plenty more where these came from).

Long views first:

Spoilt views?

Not spoilt yet, but you can see what will happen in a very short time.

These photographs were provided by Jacky Little (and she retains copyright). Thanks, Jacky! 

Verging on the ridiculous

Here's someone who's definitely concerned to preserve the integrity of the verges. Sorry about the appalling title - there was really no choice ....

Parking on the Stray (again)

A contribution from Andrew Hart - definitely worth a read.

https://www.fakefestivals.co.uk/2015/Harrogate.html

If you open this link it does say in small print "No parking on the Stray" but I wonder how the Council are going to enforce this or will they "turn a blind eye" as they do every other day of the year? Either way they have backed themselves into a corner on this one. If they ignore any parking violations then they risk further serious damage to the Stray verges. If they enforce the "Strictly No Parking on the Stray rules set by the Stray Act 1985 and backed on their own website then they have set a precedent that I for one will constantly remind them of. I dread to think what the verges on Knaresborough Road and Oatlands Drive might look like on that Sunday morning, especially if it rains at all over that weekend! I sincerely hope HBC cone off both those areas.

It also says in small print "No camping available at the festival site"! That is a significantly different statement to "camping is strictly prohibited on any part of the Stray".

The organisers have made no mention of the other restrictions the Stray carries such as no fires or barbecues? The item that concerns me the most is that this so called Fake Festival is going to be within metres of residential housing, hotels and rest homes. However, the most crucial point that seems to have by-passed the planners is that it is going to be within 400 metres of a major hospital that contains a lot of very ill and dying patients who need peace, quiet and rest!

I do still worry that the very damaged "protective matting" at the Oatlands Drive entrance has not yet been repaired/replaced despite several calls for the Council to give it very urgent H&S attention. I know I would not rest easy if it was my responsibility and I knew a large number of Fake Festival vehicles and music fans will be using it in three weeks time!

I have absolutely no problem with a large music festival in Harrogate but really is the Stray the correct venue when we have a magnificent Conference Centre and one of the counties best Showgrounds within 1000 metres of the town centre. One might be tempted to think the Council chose the Stray because it is free for them to use. I wonder if the Council will be charging the organisers for the use of the Stray and where any profit is going? Maybe the profit will be used to safeguard the Strays verges?

Whilst I applaud the Council for bringing in new entertainment to the town, the Stray cannot sustain increased commercial use by our Council without increased protection and investment. Because the Council have Stewardship of the Stray does not mean it should be used by the Council for political or financial gain.

Incidentally, as a final thought, we all are entitled to open and free access to all parts of the Stray at all times so I am bewildered to know how we can be charged £21 per person to access the Oatlands Drive Stray area on 25th July?

Andrew Hart