‘An absolute nonsense’: Ripon’s regeneration plan thrown into doubt as vision for city's future remains unfinished - more than two years later

At a meeting of the Skipton and Ripon area constituency committee in Skipton, officers at North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council spoke to councillors about the economic opportunities for Ripon ahead of the new council forming on April 1.

But it was the current status of the Ripon Renewal Project masterplan that Ripon councillors Andrew Williams and Barbara Brodigan were seeking answers to.

Harrogate Borough Council awarded a contract to Bauman Lyons Architects in 2020 to draw up a vision for the future of the city.

A consultation was held in 2021 when residents, businesses and community groups highlighted problems in the city. These included not enough things for young people to do, traffic in the market place and a lack of affordable housing.

However, publication of the document has been beset by delays, which led Coun Brodigan to accuse the council of letting it “gather dust” at an office in Harrogate.

Ripon City Council and Ripon BID have submitted freedom of information requests to HBC in an attempt to find out what has been produced.

The project is being co-funded by North Yorkshire County Council and the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership.

HBC’s acting head of place-shaping and economic growth, Linda Marfitt, told councillors the project was initially delayed due to the consultation exercises taking longer than expected.

She said the council then tried to extend the contract with the architect but were not able to come to an agreement so had to “bring the commission to a close”.

Ms Marfitt said despite the council not being in possession of a draft masterplan, officers have looked at what work has been done so far and will present a summary to councillors next week.

She added around £55,000 of the £85,000 that was earmarked had been spent.

Ms Marfitt said: “It isn’t something that sits on a shelf, we’re proactively moving it forward. We’re working with the new council to see what can be done. There will be an update next week. I do apologise for the elongated time frame but we were trying to get a successful outcome.”

It was a response that exacerbated Andrew Williams, independent councillor for Ripon Minster and Moorside and the leader of Ripon City Council.

He said: “It’s astonishing that we’ve spent £85,000 of public money to get nothing, not even a draft executive summary from a consultant — that’s how bad this is.

“A lot of time has been spent on this by organisations in the city but it’s fallen off a cliff-edge. It’s an absolute nonsense.”

A spokesperson for Bauman Lyons Architects issued the following statement: “Following a positive and helpful period of community and stakeholder engagement, the initial stages of the project took longer than envisaged.

"This meant it was necessary for the council and Bauman Lyons Architects to enter into discussions about a new contract to complete the work.

"An agreement on the terms could not be reached and the commission has now come to a close.”