Editor's Pick of the Week: Raworth runs, sewage flows and Killinghall’s housing numbers soar

Harrogate’s annual literature festival attracts an eclectic mix of guests, but the format rarely strays far from the familiar: seats, subdued lighting and a guest being quizzed by an interviewer.

That all went out the window yesterday (October 23) with Raworth Runs, a 6.30am five-kilometre trot around Harrogate with newsreader Sophie Raworth.

It turned out to be one of the wettest mornings of the year. We splashed through puddles deep enough to leave nobody with a dry foot, but it was great fun. Organised in conjunction with the Early Bird Run Crew, it proved that the maddest ideas can sometimes be the best.

The same may be true of plans to stage a soapbox derby in Harrogate next year, with teams hurtling down Montpellier Hill in homemade, non-motorised contraptions powered by gravity alone. What could possibly go wrong? Apart from the brakes, the steering and the small matter of the hill.

The return of the rain has brought another unwelcome consequence: more sewage being pumped into our rivers. I’ve become mildly obsessed with sewagemap.co.uk, which tracks discharges into waterways in real time. Counting poo is fast replacing counting sheep as my preferred method of getting to sleep. Thise lucky folk in Boroughbridge, meanwhile, had the dubious pleasure of raw sewage being discharged into the River Ure for more than two days straight this week.

Our ageing sewage infrastructure is frequently cited in objections to new housing developments. In Killinghall, residents have spent much of the year fighting plans for 885 homes across six separate schemes. This week, another 1,100 were added to the mix in a proposal for a development that would swallow up almost as much land as the entire Stray.

That takes the potential total to 1,985 homes — more than the 1,969 households recorded across the parish in the 2021 census. In other words, the number of homes proposed could exceed the number already there. And that’s before anyone asks whether the pipes can cope.

Let’s hope Yorkshire Water’s £19 million upgrade of its Killinghall sewage treatment works performs rather better than the company’s underwhelming scheme in Ripon.

If sewage concerns aren’t enough to keep you awake at night, there’s always the prospect of being bombed into oblivion. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament will be calling for the closure of RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, today, arguing that the US intelligence base puts the area at greater risk in a conflict. These are unsettling times to be hosting a major American spy facility, particularly when the question of whether the United States is friend or foe seems less straightforward than it once did.

Sometimes you need a trip to the pub to forget about it all. Sadly, the owner of one of the best local boozers, the Royal Oak in Pateley Bridge, is retiring. The pub is being refurbished before reopening under new pub company ownership. Let’s hope the makeover doesn’t strip the character out of another much-loved local. We’ve got enough things going down the drain already.

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