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Guardians of The Stray in Harrogate claim site has been left with "atrocious damage" due to World Champs Fan Zone flooding

Chairwoman of the Stray Defence Association says it will take "a very long time" to reverse the damage caused by heavy flooding...

Leading guardians of The Stray in Harrogate say it may take a "very long time" to restore the grounds of the park back to its previous condition, after heavy flooding combined with huge crowds and churning from heavy goods vehicles on site has left deep mud and giant puddles all over the previously green grounds. 

The Stray Defence Association was set up in 1933 to protect the grounds from encroachment and uphold an act that grands "freedom of the Stray to all people for all time", but the SDA's chairwomen Judy d'Arcy Thompson says this wasn't adhered to when it was used as the Fan Zone for the World Championships. She told the Harrogate Advertiser: "No one looking at it could doubt the atrocious damage suffered by Harrogate’s Stray during the past weeks, particularly West Park Stray. Damage which is so appalling it is hard to quantify.

"It is our view that, despite the assurances we sought, and were given, from every public body that any damage would be minimised, far too little appropriate and adequate protection was provided for the Stray.
"Long after such events leave town it is our Stray which remains, a constant and unique asset promoting Harrogate as a beautiful place to visit.

"What sort of feasibility study was done to ascertain potential destruction over such a lengthy period of appropriation?

"The Stray Defence Association has been contacted by many local people who, like ourselves, are deeply distressed by what has occurred. We fear that the full restoration of Harrogate’s wonderful Stray will take a very long time."

The weather was so bad that organisers were forced to cancel the planned headline musical performance from The Feeling on Sunday evening, and it's certainly the worst weather for a Worlds in our recent collective memories - was this simply an unprecedented weather event that no one could have foresaw, or could the organisers have done more? Let us know your thoughts if you made the soggy trip to Yorkshire last week... 

Arriving at road.cc in 2017 via 220 Triathlon Magazine, Jack dipped his toe in most jobs on the site and over at eBikeTips before being named the new editor of road.cc in 2020, much to his surprise. His cycling life began during his students days, when he cobbled together a few hundred quid off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story) and bought his first road bike - a Trek 1.1 that was quickly relegated to winter steed, before it was sadly pinched a few years later. Creatively replacing it with a Trek 1.2, Jack mostly rides this bike around local cycle paths nowadays, but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking - the latter being another long story.  

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31 comments

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bigbiker101 | 4 years ago
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It is a right mess, lets be sure of that, but it will be OK if the council and subcontractors do the job they promised which brings me to my point.

I support the SDA here, anybody who deals with the council and subcontractors know that without somebody looking over their shoulders they will just "make do" and not repair it, whilst the SDA are a right royal pain, hopefully the complaints will ensure it is put back fully, the grass will grow, it is the massive ruts and the like that need repairing.

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Jem PT | 4 years ago
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So the SDA uphold an Act that grants "freedom of the Stray to all people for all time"? Where is the exception for cyclists or cycle enthusiasts. NIMBYs the lot of them! 

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Rick_Rude replied to Jem PT | 4 years ago
1 like

Jem PT wrote:

So the SDA uphold an Act that grants "freedom of the Stray to all people for all time"? Where is the exception for cyclists or cycle enthusiasts. NIMBYs the lot of them! 

Lol, cyclists are the very last people the SDA wants on the Stray! Must say I have shortcutted over to Tewitt Well many times , the horror, the horror! Arrest me now!

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Organon | 4 years ago
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Madness, who invited all these cyclists to congregate at one point? Such 'organised' events should be banned!

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cougie | 4 years ago
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I hope she's holding the Yorkshire rain to account ? 

 

As has been said - it's grass  - it will recover.  And whats the point of the Stray if not to be used ? 

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john1967 | 4 years ago
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Don't mess with the stray defence association.

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Rick_Rude | 4 years ago
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I'm originally from one of those 'right part of town' areas but that is only by chance and immense house price rises in the area. The character of the town has changed a lot imo, when we first moved there it was open to 'normal' people with middle class jobs. I remember if you saw a Porsche it was 'wow'. Now they're ten a penny around the town.

My parents moved there in 1984, into a 4 bedroom detached in a decent area - £51k.

Same houses in 2019 - £600k. Bonkers. Anyone moving into the town now is pretty loaded.

My mother actually moved in 2004 into a bigger house and paid £290k. Now they're about £700k. Insane. They're like poor people in the street because she's still driving a 2007 Peugeot and everyone else is driving a Q5/Range Pig/£60k thing.

I missed the boat on buying a house there,  my mates that did ended up living in areas which were pretty crap like St. Andrews estate and near the dive parts of Bilton. You do have to move quiet a way out for prices to drop through. Knaresborough and Wetherby aren't far off in prices. York is also pretty daft for prices as well even though it's pretty much a district of Newcastle on a weekend.

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don simon fbpe | 4 years ago
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One wonders whether said chairwoman drives a motorised vehicle.

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HarrogateSpa | 4 years ago
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Pannal is very nice. I doubt it is any less expensive than Harrogate!

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Rik Mayals unde... replied to HarrogateSpa | 4 years ago
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HarrogateSpa wrote:

Pannal is very nice. I doubt it is any less expensive than Harrogate!

It is, because that is the reason why he bought his house in Pannal, because they couldn't afford to live in Harrogate.

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Rik Mayals unde... | 4 years ago
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My nephew lives ten minutes out of Harrogate, in Pannal. He tells me that most people who live in Harrogate are not locals, they are NIMBYS of the highest order. Locals cannot afford to live in Harrogate. The 'Locals' moan about everything. Usually wealthy in appearance, huge 4x4, double barrelled names, what my nephew calls 'fur coat and no knickers'.

We went to watch the race just out of Skipton. The weather was atrocious. All the riders looked pissed off, but hats off to all those who rode it, let alone completed it. Far from the weather ruining it, in my opinion it made for one of the best races. A true 'Hell of the North'.

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iandusud replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 4 years ago
1 like

biker phil wrote:

My nephew lives ten minutes out of Harrogate, in Pannal. He tells me that most people who live in Harrogate are not locals, they are NIMBYS of the highest order. Locals cannot afford to live in Harrogate. The 'Locals' moan about everything. Usually wealthy in appearance, huge 4x4, double barrelled names, what my nephew calls 'fur coat and no knickers'.

Quite true. Most of the people I know who live in Harrogate don't originate from here, myself included. I live in an area of Harrogate that is generally looked down upon and no "respectable" person would buy a house here. I love it and think it's best place in Harrogate. There's a huge amount of snobbery among a lot of the people who live the "right part of town". 

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HarrogateSpa | 4 years ago
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Stray Defence Association statements are often hyperbole. They seem to really hate bicycles. The Stray belongs to everyone in Harrogate, and I doubt the SDA represents us.

But. When we had the Tour de France, West Park Stray was used in the same way, but it was left open to everyone.

For the World Champs, it was fenced off about a week before. Then lots of G4S operatives were employed to enforce pernickety rules at the entrances. No cameras, for example. Why? (They may have relented on that after the first day).

It did spoil it a bit, having so much fencing around. It is still fenced off now as they dismantle everything.

West Park Stray is in a right state, because of the weather, people walking on it, and HGVs driving over it. Of course it will recover in time.

If there was anything similar again (which there probably won't be), I'd say don't fence off and privatise The Stray. And bring a minimum of infrastructure, because you can't have all those HGVs driving over the park. And no G4S.

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daveygftm | 4 years ago
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I attended the Worlds on Sunday ,I was stood opposite the fan zone which had been shut ,it did look like there was standing water in quite a few places ,I can imagine it won’t be a nice place after all the media caravans have left site .I come from South Shields which every year sees the finish for the Great North run ,the Leas is turned into a media and finish village ,after it is packed away it takes about 3 months to recover from the turmoil to be honest it’s looking pretty good after only one month of regrow the of grass at the moment .Give it time and it will return to its splender . 

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spen | 4 years ago
2 likes

This sounds a lot like some people have just realized they are a much smaller cog than they thought.

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rliu | 4 years ago
4 likes

'The Stray Defence Association was set up in 1933 to protect the grounds from encroachment and uphold an act that grands "freedom of the Stray to all people for all time"'
Surely this renders the rest of Mrs D'Arcy-Thompson's hyperbole irrelevant? As long as no Monopoly Man esque villainous fat cat tries to make the Stray into private land, the SDA has no cause for complaint.
It's such a crying shame that the current grass coverage isn't as good as it should be, what with the lovely Yorkshire autumn and winter coming up. Just think of all the ruined picnics.

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Shades | 4 years ago
3 likes

The 'Fun Police'.......every town/city has a group.  If they had their way nothing like the World Cycling Champs would happen, the town would die and then they'd be squeeling that the place was just full of charity shops.  The vocal minority that, quite frankly, get too much 'airtime'; sadly they're usually intelligent, well-funded and more than happy using all their waking (retired) hours opposing things that the majority would enjoy.

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Kendalred | 4 years ago
13 likes

They need to get Michael or Emily Eavis to tell them what happens after a load of people walk around in muddy fields for a few days.

Spoiler alert - it recovers.

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jollygoodvelo | 4 years ago
5 likes

I'm sure it does look pretty terrible now, and if there are ruts and so on they should be sorted out and the ground returned to how it was, it's only fair.

But it's rained pretty much non stop for a week, a global sporting event has been held in your town, and it's only Tuesday morning.  You can't expect it to look the same five minutes later. 

Give the organisers a few weeks to make good on their promises, let the grass grow back and by April next year if it still looks like a bombsite then I'm sure we'll all be annoyed.

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crazy-legs | 4 years ago
20 likes

CX organisers get similar every time a park is used. One organiser posted some before, during and after pics to Facebook showing a vast muddy swathe cut through the field and about 2 weeks later, anothe pic where you could barely see the previous damage.

It'll dry out in a few weeks, a bit of grass seed and it'll be back to its previous condition.

To be honest they could do with converting some of it to meadow / grassland rather than just a sterile grass, it's little different to a golf course.

Funny how they don't complain when it gets used for the Harrogate Fair or for temporary parking during shows.

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brooksby replied to crazy-legs | 4 years ago
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crazy-legs wrote:

To be honest they could do with converting some of it to meadow / grassland rather than just a sterile grass, it's little different to a golf course.

Is the Strand that formal park, at the bottom of the valley/hill IIRC?  I remember (childhood, so cut me some slack) the grass there as being like a bowling green, with very very formal flower borders etc.

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iandusud replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
3 likes

brooksby wrote:

crazy-legs wrote:

To be honest they could do with converting some of it to meadow / grassland rather than just a sterile grass, it's little different to a golf course.

Is the Strand that formal park, at the bottom of the valley/hill IIRC?  I remember (childhood, so cut me some slack) the grass there as being like a bowling green, with very very formal flower borders etc.

 

I think you're thinking of Valley Gardens. The Stray isn't formal, it's an open grassed area. It does look a mess but if done properly it will recover quickly enough imo. As someone else has said the sort of people that are complaining are the usual anti-cycling Range Rover driving lot who constantly write to the Harrogate Advertiser to complain.

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brooksby replied to iandusud | 4 years ago
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iandusud wrote:

brooksby wrote:

crazy-legs wrote:

To be honest they could do with converting some of it to meadow / grassland rather than just a sterile grass, it's little different to a golf course.

Is the Strand that formal park, at the bottom of the valley/hill IIRC?  I remember (childhood, so cut me some slack) the grass there as being like a bowling green, with very very formal flower borders etc.

I think you're thinking of Valley Gardens. The Stray isn't formal, it's an open grassed area. It does look a mess but if done properly it will recover auickly enough imo. As someone else has said the sort of people that are complaining are the usual anti-cycling Range Rover driving lot who constantly write to the Harrogate Advertiser to complain.

Oh OK, thanks (haven't been back to Harrogate for nearly thirty years...  )

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dassie replied to crazy-legs | 4 years ago
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crazy-legs wrote:

... To be honest they could do with converting some of it to meadow / grassland rather than just a sterile grass, it's little different to a golf course. ...

This!   Someone please persuade Harrogate council...

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Zermattjohn | 4 years ago
7 likes

'.. was this simply an unprecedented weather event that no one could have foresaw..?'.

Yes. Next...

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peted76 | 4 years ago
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It 'was' grass..now it's kyboshed...

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Liam Cahill | 4 years ago
2 likes

They should be thankful that The Feeling gig got cancelled...

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Jackson | 4 years ago
7 likes

They're angry because it was for something to do with cycling.

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MikeKay | 4 years ago
13 likes

Surly it's just grass, or am i missing something ?

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Rick_Rude replied to MikeKay | 4 years ago
14 likes

MikeKay wrote:

Surly it's just grass, or am i missing something ?

Yes, it's the SDA. Same people that have fits if cycle paths etc. are mentioned, spend half their lives writing letters to the Harrogate Advertiser about such things.

Usually drive a Overfinch V8 Range Rover and live in £2m houses with enough land to not really bother using the Stray anyway.

And yes, it is just grass.

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