REVIEW OF THE YEAR: Headlines hot up in 2018

JULY

July saw Ryedale District Council propose, for the time, its intention to purchase land near Eden Camp north of Old Malton and construct a new £3 million livestock market for the district, allowing the market company to vacate the site in central Malton.

The announcement broke a long-lasting deadlock over the move; though a new site for the market has been discussed for decades, and though it is considered very likely that the market will be asked to leave its current home, the market company had yet to raise the money required to move to the new ‘agri-business’ park near Eden Camp.

Since their July announcement, the plans have progressed and the council recently approved spending up to £50,000 on developing a business case for the plans.

AUGUST

As the summer bore on, and weeks drifted by without rain, the resulting drought was top of the agenda at agricultural events like Ryedale Show, held in August.

Farmers gathered throughout the day in the sun outside the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) tents to discuss the weather, which according to Geoff Todd, group secretary of the NFU, had even supplanted Brexit as being forefront of many farmers’ minds.

Elsewhere, in the fields of the vale of Pickering, the drought revealed curious shapes: the outlines of Iron Age buildings and grave sites.

Local archaeologist Professor Dominic Powlesland said: “This year’s drought is very unusual.

“I’ve been doing this for a very long time. This year, particular types of features are showing on a scale that I wouldn’t normally expect.”

SEPTEMBER

In September, the skeleton of a mystery 800-year-old woman, found during excavations in Ebberston in October 2012, was formally reinterred in the village’s church.

The remains of the woman had been found during refurbishment works at the west end of the Church of St Marys the Virgin, on a site where an even older church once stood. The bones were in good condition - a 35-page report by a York-based company concluded the remains dated from the 13th century.

Claire Potter, manager of FA Stockill and Son Funeral Directors, which helped facilitate and fund the reinterment, said: “It was a sunny and calm afternoon at the beautiful St Mary the Virgin Church, Ebberston; a perfect setting.

“Words of acknowledgement for her life and a nod to her first funeral were shared. It was a most respectful affair.”

A pony left with extensive facial burns in a suspected acid attack began a new life after undergoing pioneering treatment in Ryedale. Eight-month-old cob filly Cinders was found dumped in Derbyshire in April, with burns and tissue damage from her eyes to her nose caused by what is believed to have been a deliberate attack with a corrosive substance.

Cinders was taken to the Rainbow Equine Hospital, in Old Malton, where she was the first horse in the world with burn injuries to be treated with a dressing made from Tilapia fish skin.

A Californian vet came to perform the surgery, along with specialists at the hospital, after more than £18,000 was donated to help fund the treatment.

Vet David Rendle said: “There is a fairytale ending. She will have a very comfortable life at a beautiful country house in North Yorkshire where she will be cared for by some amazing people who are well known to the team at Rainbow.”

OCTOBER

A quirky new sculpture was installed in the depths of Dalby Forest to mark 100 years both since the creation of the Forestry Commission and since the end of the First World War.

The sculpture was created by Turner Prize-winning artist Rachel Whiteread, who was at its launch in October.

The piece is a concrete cast of the interior space of a Nissen hut; the distinctive military structure invented by Major Peter Nissen during the First World War. These prefabricated steel structures were easily put up and had a variety of uses, including as workshops, field hospitals, housing and even churches.

Rachel said: “Nissen huts are an indigenous part of our post-war architecture. Placing this sculpture deep in the heart of Dalby Forest will lead visitors on a journey of discovery to its final resting place, a quiet memorial to these extraordinary structures.”

Details on the long-awaited plans for about 600 homes and a new primary school in Norton were released.

The development, in Beverley Road, will also include a link road to Hugden Way to help reduce traffic congestion through the town centre. National developers Barratt Homes and Taylor Wimpey Homes have been working together since 2015 on the £72 million development named ‘Norton Lodge’.

Planning consultant Paul Butler told members of Norton Town Council in October that the plan was for about 600 homes of various sizes to be built over a seven-year period. “The site will also deliver a new link road, 2.1Ha of land for a new 240-pupil primary school and public open space,” he said.

NOVEMBER

A new community-led initiative was launched to help tackle waste food in Malton and Norton.

The Ryedale Free Fridge was developed with the support of the Coast and Vale Community Action’s Totally Socially project, and is located at the Wesley Centre in Saville Street, Malton.

The idea is to enable residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food which retailers can no longer sell - even though it is still suitable to eat.

Lindsay Wrightson, from Ryedale Free Fridge, said that food waste was a big issue in the UK, with the average household throwing away £700 worth of food every year and at the same time four million people in the UK are living in food poverty.

DECEMBER

A £5.4 million plan for Ryedale District Council to move to a new office on Wentworth Street car park in Malton was put in doubt at a meeting earlier this month. Councillors instead expressed a preference to remain on the Ryedale House site in Old Malton.

The council had previously agreed in principle to move away from the large, 1970s structure of Ryedale House, which has high maintenance costs and has seen underinvestment in its upkeep.

But following recent analysis which put the cost of moving at about double the initial projections of £2.5m, councillors voted to undertake a financial analysis of creating a public service hub - with the preference of developing the current Ryedale House site.

However, it’s not currently clear whether that will mean refurbishing the building itself, reconfiguring it, or even building new houses on part of the site.

As the year drew to a close, traffic chaos in the market towns began to dominate headlines.

In Kirkbymoorside, some residents are seeking a one-way system to ease the pressure on the narrow West End.

In Helmsley, the town council published a report on traffic issues in the town, in an effort to prompt the responsible authorities to take steps to tackle them.

In Norton and Malton, residents met to discuss ideas on how to solve the problems of congestion and air quality, as well as how to tackle the issues created when the number of trains going through the level-crossing pinch-point doubles at the end of 2019.