Why Harrogate needs a bold vision

Harrogate is an affluent town with notable history and the lifestyle to show for it.

What it needs is a clear vision for its future – a vision that can build on its heritage rather than be stuck in it.

That’s the view of several of the town’s leading businesspeople who attended TheBusinessDesk.com’s round table discussion on the future of Harrogate, sponsored by Raworths and Saffery.

Bridget Moore, founder of Alchemy Media, said, “We’ve got all this lovely heritage, which is great, but we seem to be very good at saying no to things, and ‘Oh, we can’t do that!’ There’s a lot of negativity, and keeping things are they are.

“We need to be more forward thinking, more visionary about what the different possibilities are. This is a crown jewel of North Yorkshire. How do we push that in a positive and forward thinking direction – keeping the bits that have made Harrogate great but making it still part of the future.”

Anthony Robinson, founder and chief executive of Lift Agency, agreed, and cited the example of the street food festival, which attracted large crowds to Valley Gardens in the heart of the town and was moved to the Great Yorkshire Showground on the edge of town.

“It got binned because four or five old people on Valley Drive complained about the noise at 9.30 on the Saturday,” he said.

“That’s my frustration with Harrogate. We just moan. The kids would have had an amazing weekend, but we bin it for them. There were so many people coming in from Leeds, from Bradford, saying, ‘This is cool.’”

George Cunningham, co-managing director of sports retailer Up & Running, said that while great events such as the Tour de France helped put Harrogate on the global map, the town needed to capitalise on that prominence. But that too had its problems – a rainy week left The Stray parkland muddy, which then led complaints and another ban on big events.

“Part of Harrogate’s problem is that it hasn’t got a problem,” said Simon Morris, managing partner at Raworths. “It’s safe, you can leave it alone and ignore it.IF you try and do something, you get into a lot of hot water for making a mistake.”

Jonathan Davis, partner at Saffery, said a vision for the future must be a bold one. “We have to be brave. We might make mistakes, and we might tarnish as little bit of what we had before.

“It has to be brave and it has to be faster. We’ve got to be ready to make the decisions about where we’re going to invest, and how we’re going to do it, and what Harrogate looks like in the next 5, 10, 15, years.”

The discussion grew more animated when Fionula Scanlan, group general counsel at Betty’s and Taylor’s, asked what the people around the table were prepared to do about it.

Ed Sims, customer experience director of EnviroVent, said the Harrogate needed a brand the business community could rally behind. “We’re not going to ride roughshow over the naysayers, because that’s not the right thing to do. But we have to meet those objections head on and push it forward for the benefit of the town, the businesses, and the people who live here.”

Earlier in the discussion the attendees considered the problems of transport connectivity. With many of the town’s workforce commuting from Leeds or Harrogate, and some businesses moving to the edge of town in order to expand, attendees felt Harrogate needed better rail links, better bus services, and a park and ride system to alleviate congestion in the town centre.

“There’s a massive agenda to build houses, and to build affordable houses, and all for the right reasons,” said James Rycroft, managing director of Vida Healthcare. “But there doesn’t seem to be much thought put into the transport system or investment going into that transport system. The result is gridlock.”

Jennifer Woodhall, sustainability director of Chameleon Technology, said a park and ride system combined with a solar park could offer electric car charging – something Harrogate lacked.

“You would get this wonderfully preserved, gorgeous Victorian town with heritage brands, beautiful buildings, and clean air, which we don’t have in Harrogate. We could bring the two together, but it would need to be a very significant, holistic solution which the public and government would have to embrace.

“Then that would make people think. ‘Oh that’s a really good, future-focussed town – wonderful past, great future.’”

And that vision for Harrogate? As the discussion broke up attendees were making plans to meet again and continue the conversation, to help push for the vision they wanted to see.

This is the second of two reports from the Future of Harrogate round table. Part one looks at recruitment and retention in the town.