Think Harrogate Place Leadership Group

Harrogate Place Network - what is it and why do we need it?

We’re very lucky in that we already have many individuals and companies who are quietly great ambassadors for the Harrogate district - who promote the place, speak up for it and want to be part of taking the area forward. We want to build on the fantastic work these individuals and companies are doing by creating a ‘team Harrogate’ approach.

We want to build our own Ambassador Network for Harrogate, to bring businesses and community organisations together using a place-based approach to really put Harrogate on the map. We have such a great story to tell and we have much to be proud of but to have the greatest impact we need all of us to be doing this together – to all act as ambassadors for Harrogate District and to cascade the story about our wonderful place.

A Place Network can also enable members to create relationships that benefit themselves and the area, to influence and learn about the development of the place, to act as spokespeople in the media and to develop new initiatives with each other. Our intention is to come together every two or three months to hear from leaders and others across the district, share best practice, network and come up with new ideas for how we can promote our place.

The Harrogate Place Leadership Group is led by private sector businesses and organisations under the Chairmanship of Mark Roberts and Sharon Canavar with back office support from Harrogate Borough Council.

We see the purpose of this group is to help mobilise initiatives across our place and also to act as ambassadors for our place.

When it comes to mobilising initiatives, we propose to focus on the four themes that were launched as part of the Harrogate Story. For each we need to:

1. Ensure we have total clarity for what the theme really means

2. Define our ambition for each area

3. Outline an assessment of where we really are today, to help identify gaps vs our ambition

4. Generate initial ideas for initiatives that can help close these gaps, so that over time we can help make our place better

We see this group meeting every two months, to discuss our aims and objectives, and agree how we measure success. HBC is represented on the group and will share current council and local authority initiatives with the group in order to inform discussion and feedback.