Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Alyson Baker, Dan Sladden, Malcolm Taylor and Annabel Wilkinson.

To approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Resolved

That the minutes of the previous meeting of the Thirsk and Malton Area Committee held on 13 June 2025 be confirmed and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

Councillors George Jabbour and Caroline Goodrick declared an interest for the purposes of transparency in item 7 as Chair and Vice Chair respectively of the Howardian Hills National Landscape Joint Advisory Committee. Councillor Jabbour also declared an interest as a member of the North York Moors National Park Authority.

Councillor George Jabbour joined the meeting at 2.10 pm, having previously tried to join remotely.

Councillor Keane Duncan joined the meeting at 2.15pm.

Members of the public may ask questions or make statements at this meeting if they have given notice and provided the text to Democratic Services Officer (details below) no later than midday on 23 September 2025, three working days before the day of the meeting. Each speaker should limit themselves to 3 minutes on any item. 

If you are exercising your right to speak at this meeting, but do not wish to be recorded, please inform the Chair who will instruct those taking a recording to cease whilst you speak.

There were three public questions.

From Richard Crabtree

Good afternoon, Chair and Councillors.

I speak on behalf of parents from Sheriff Hutton and nearby villages about school transport to Outwood Academy Easingwold. We urgently need your help.

Children from our villages have had transport removed not once but twice, leaving those already settled into their new school without a way to get there.

This time last year, parents applied for secondary places. Most chose their catchment school, as they always had. We received no direct email or letter warning of any change, and your website continued to reference catchment schools in four places until March this year. Officers have acknowledged those errors, but parents made their choices in good faith, unaware the rules had changed.

On 3 March 2025, allocations were confirmed. Our children were accepted into their catchment school, preparations began, and families had every reason to assume transport would be provided.

Then, on 23 May, the bombshell landed. Parents received an email saying transport had been withdrawn under the new policy. No one in the village knew. Appeals followed, but two days before the end of term we were told that no paid-for passes would be available either, leaving children stranded.

At the eleventh hour, Outwood Academy arranged passes through Morse Coaches for this year only. But last Friday, parents were told that provision has been withdrawn. The costs are prohibitive, and North Yorkshire Council refuses to contribute. From October, our children will have no way to reach the school they have already started at and settled in to.

This pattern - poor communication, sudden policy bombshells, last-minute U-turns - has caused enormous stress and disrupted children’s education. Officers were warned this policy would harm rural families, and here is the evidence. Yet nothing will change until 2028. By then, I fear villages like Sheriff Hutton may have no young families left. This is the kind of example our MP Kevin Hollinrake was taking about when expressed his concerns.

With all this in mind I ask the council to:

1.     Recognise the exceptional circumstances here and work with the school and coach company to find an urgent solution so these children are not left stranded.

2.     Restore the policy review to its original timing, so it begins this year, not next, and avoids further harm to rural villages like ours.

These children cannot be left in the lurch. We need action now. And I’d be keen to hear your views as our councillors on how to solve this.

Response from Amanda Fielding, Assistant Director Inclusion

Thank you to Mr Crabtree for your statement and questions.

The Council’s Home to School Travel Policy was adopted at the meeting of the Full Council in July 2024 and was implemented with effect from 1 September 2024. The policy aligns the council’s arrangements with the Department for Education’s Statutory Guidance for home to school travel, including the main eligibility criteria which is that assistance is provided to the nearest suitable school with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

Kevin Hollinrake, MP for Thirsk and Malton and Sir Alec Shelbrooke, MP for Wetherby and Easingwold.

Sir Alec Shelbrooke MP submitted a written update, which was included with the agenda.

Kevin Hollinrake MP attended the meeting in person. Key issues discussed included:

·       Home to school transport provision and the budget pressures faced by the Council

·       The cumulative impact of a significant number of solar farms applications, the infrastructure associated with this and impact on tenant farmers in particular.

·       Flag flying

·       Challenges faced by the farming community due to the impact of the weather, volatility of prices, family farm tax and the withdrawal of the sustainable farm incentive.

·       Challenges faced by the hospitality industry – Members drew attention to local businesses that were successfully reopening

·       Continued support and campaigning for the duelling of the A64

·       Holiday and second homes and the investment of the second homes premium in affordable homes

·       Malton livestock market, funding and a solution to relocate the market

·       A replacement for the Filey town bus service and possible support from the Mayor.

·       Views on the provision of free parking and public toilets in local towns and the challenges of bringing seven variations of the same service together.

The Chair thanked Mr Hollinrake for his attendance.

A member of the public asked a question and was responded to as in minute 4 above.

Officers from the Community Safety and CCTV teams presented an annual update on the work of the team.

The report outlined the focus of:

Community Safety Hub:

·       Local issues and delivery – dealt with by joined up working with internal and external partners and multi-agency visits to the locations to provide engagement, awareness and evidence gathering where possible.

·       Ongoing work to tackle local issues – including Community Protection Warnings, Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Criminal Behaviour Orders, rapid deployment CCTV cameras, MAPS meetings and work with partners such as the Police and social landlords.

·       Community Safety Hub tools and powers – use of tools and powers within the Anti-social behaviour, Crime and Police Act 2014

·       Project/thematic work – knife bins, “Bleed kits” in the local market towns, events and education sessions around national awareness weeks, links with local Policing teams and work with schools.

·       Community Safety Hub activity as per the Performance Framework - currently developing a Performance Framework to enable the Service to evidence performance against identifiable outcome measures

Community Safety Partnership

·       Domestic abuse - a crucial role in addressing domestic abuse by ensuring early intervention, safeguarding and multi-agency collaboration

·       Preventing and reducing serious violence - a multi-agency approach that focuses on early intervention, public awareness and targeted enforcement

·       Night-time economy - to support the NYP Nighttime Economy Strategy

·       Tackling hate crime and extremism - a multi-agency approach that prioritises prevention, intervention, and community resilience

·       Prevent groups and Protect and Prepare groups - work together with partners, communities and businesses to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism, and to identify risk and vulnerability in relation to a potential terrorist attack in North Yorkshire

·       Martyn’s law - mandates that public premises with a capacity greater than 200 are better prepared for terrorist attacks and ready to respond

CCTV & CCTV performance

The future of CCTV across North Yorkshire was subject to further strategic review and transformation.

In the period 01/04/2024 to 31/08/2025, the CCTV Control Room in Northallerton monitored total of 134 incidents, 10 arrests, undertaken 29 reviews of footage and provided 22 copies of evidence to potentially be utilised for court proceedings; 13 of which were related to ASB.

For the same period the Ryedale cameras in Action cluster dealt with 223 incidents, undertook 87 evidential reviews and produced 63 pieces of evidence.

Officers from North Yorkshire Police presented crime statistics from 1 September 2024 to 31 August 2025.

The report included data on:

·       Crimes per ward

·       Violence against women and girls

·       Retails crime

·       Anti-social behaviour (ASB)

·       Crime and ASB in Kirkbymoorside, Pickering and Filey.

North Yorkshire Police had seen a steady decrease in crime year on year and a decrease in a number of crime types.

Areas seeing an increase were Kirkbymoorside and Pickering around ASB and graffiti incidents in Malton and Norton.

Members questioned the actions taken against young people and the officers confirmed that the approach to dealing with young people  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Officers presented an update on the National Landscape Management Plan which must be reviewed every 5 years.

The management plan was developed on behalf of North Yorkshire Council (as host authority) and was adopted by the council for the National Landscape to deliver. The management plan formulates policy for the management of the National Landscape area and for carrying out functions in relation to the National Landscape Area.

The Management Plan set out objectives for the next 5 years relevant to the conservation and enhancement of the National Landscape area to include:

·       Climate

·       Natural environment

·       Historic environment

·       Built environment

·       Living and working

·       Visiting

In addition, the Countryside and Right of Way Act 2000 (as amended in December 2023) placed a duty on all relevant authorities to ‘seek to further the purpose of conserving and enhancing the natural beauty of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’. The team was actively working with the Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors National Parks and the county’s two National Landscapes, to understand and explore how we can most effectively comply with this duty.

Over the last 18 months officers had run workshops - four with experts in nature recovery and five on heritage housing, historic environment and tourism. In addition, there were two public meetings and an online public consultation.

The updated plan was now out for formal statutory consultation until 21 October 2025.

Members queried the possible conflict between national landscape status and housing allocations. National landscape colleagues were working with colleagues through the local plan process, but officers confirmed that they would liaise with Planning Policy colleagues and a written response to this query would be provided.

The Chair thanked officers for their presentation.

Councillor George Jabbour thanked the Manager and the team for their achievements during the life of the existing Management Plan.

Councillor Joy Andrews left the meeting at 4.10 pm.

Verbal update.

The Principal Regeneration Officer explained that Town Investment Plans (TIPs) were strategic documents that would drive a long-term vision for economic growth and regeneration, support bids for external funding and identify a list of priority projects and investment opportunities that were realistic and deliverable.

The focus for Malton and Norton was on people and place to ensure the towns were safe, accessible and attractive for people to live, work and visit and support investment, tourism and business.

A review of previous plans and studies had taken place, followed by initial stakeholder engagement.  This work has identified a strong focus on environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and resilience and helped in drawing up an initial long-list of potential initiatives.

Examples of potential strategic initiatives include:

·       A second platform at the train station, together with pedestrian cycle bridge and link path through to Norton

·       New and improved junctions with the A64 to help take some traffic out of the town centre

·       Flood mitigation and resilience measures via partnership working with Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and inhouse teams

·       A proposal for a Malton to Norton link road and bridge

Local regeneration initiatives and projects include:

·       Proposals for improving the public transport interchange as a key gateway into Malton and Norton

·       Other public realm enhancements along key routes such as Castle Gate, Norton Road, Church Street

·       The link from Wentworth Street car park to Malton Market Place

·       A focus on the need for improved and sustainable travel

·       Green space improvements

·       Making better use of the River Derwent

·       Relocation or redevelopment of Malton Museum

·       Relocation of the livestock market and freeing up the site for redevelopment

·       Improving public realm in the town centre

The next steps would include:

·       Targeted engagement with seldom heard from groups such as younger people, older people, disability groups and migrant groups

·       Proposal to form a steering group to seek initial feedback.

·       Shortlisting the initial long list of projects and identifying a defined list of realistic and deliverable projects. This will then go out to public consultation and engagement in approx. spring 2026

·       Assess capacity and resourcing in terms of external funding, internal funding and other resources

·       The aim is to have a finalised plan ready for endorsement summer next year.

Initial work on the Thirsk TIP has commenced and Filey, Pickering, Easingwold, Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside will follow in due course. 

Members asked the officer how any future decisions would be made and what engagement would take place with local Members. They emphasised the need for elected representatives to have a strong say due to their accountability to constituents.

The officer confirmed that any final decisions would made by the Council’s Executive and/or Council but only after extensive consultation and engagement with all stakeholders.

The Chair thanked the officer for the update.

For discussion

Members noted the information in the briefing note and requested a further update on the impact on local businesses of bank branch closures.

Members considered the Committee’s current work programme for the remainder of the municipal year. 

Members requested more information as follows:

·       The impact on local businesses of bank branch closures.

·       Use the briefing note on S106 and CIL as the basis for a further report to explain the differences between S106 and CIL and for officers to respond to Members’ questions  

Resolved

That the work programme be noted and the agreed additions be included in the work programme for future consideration.

Members are invited to contact the report author(s) with any detailed queries or questions on the following matters.

Agenda items 11a-11c were for information only.

Members were asked to submit any questions or requests for further information from the authors or Senior Democratic Services Officer.

Any other items which the Chair agrees should be considered as a matter of urgency because of special circumstances.

There were no items of urgent business.

Friday, 5 December 2025 at 10.00am.

The date of the next meeting was confirmed as 10am on Friday, 5 December 2025.