Harrogate Borough Council have said they have contractors on site today.
A spokesperson for Harrogate Borough Council said:
We have contractors on site with our staff today.
The initial assessment found the damage to footpaths is significant in places with the flagstone paths in particular having sunk because of the waterlogged conditions.
We want the footpaths prioritised, starting with the one alongside West Park so the fence line can be moved back. This will involve lifting the flags, levelling the sub base and relaying them.
Subject to favourable ground/weather conditions, we anticipate this will take days rather than weeks.
In terms of the rest of the grass, Y2019’s contractors have finished levelling the ground and filling in vehicle tracks/ruts.
The ground needs to dry out before we can properly assess the soil conditions, but the initial expert view is that a mixture of re-seeding and new turf will be required. That was the assessment of our parks people too.
Who is paying and how much? HBC staff are not a ‘free’ resource
I suspect us council-tax payers will be paying, Ian!
HBC only have a very limited budget for the year – especially the Parks & Open Spaces. So just who IS going to be held responsible for paying the final bill for repairing our beautiful Stray and bringing it back to its former glory? It’s going to take a lot of hard work and dedication to do this, which the Parks Gardeners have – but they are always having to manage on a shoestring budget. So to expect them to pay for this, would be grossly unfair and other things would have to suffer, due to lack of money.
I guess it will come out the same budget that has to repair the Stray each year after the Christmas Market, or the events in Valley Gardens, funny we don’t hear people complaining about who pays for those do we.
The Christmas Market or events on Crescent Garden or in Valley Gardens are presented with an invoice for repair works. The UCI were given the use of parking bays free of charge. Also, the Christmas Market closes some bays, NYCC rules say that they can’t charge for loss of earnings, but they do charge an admin fee of over £900 for closing the parking bays.
So who did get money from the UCI championships? It would appear not the town as we can’t even pay to rectify the mess we were left with….
“The ground needs to dry out before we can properly assess the soil conditions” -good luck with that one. In terms of repair bills – the event will be lucky to break even and have any cash to pay a bill – it will probably fall to the town – us residents – remember this at the next election!