The Cliche - A Victory for Common Sense

Those of you who know me would probably agree that I'm a few pounds overweight.  In terms of body mass index or what ever it is, I am the optimum weight - for someone 8 feet 9 inches tall.  So, apart from the odd bike-ride (without lycra before you ask), I need some form of exercise.  I've tried gyms and running but find it all very dull and most Harrogate gyms are full of hair-gelled pretty-boys trying to lift more weights than are good for them and women who exercise only until they think they may perspire before running back to the changing room lest anyone sees them sweat.  And it's the devil's own job trying to find a gym that does a good bacon sandwich.

So, a couple of years ago I found a form of exercise that suited me, was fun to do and was beneficial from a health point of view.  There was also a fantastic social side to it and I've made a great many friends as a result of undertaking this form of exercise.  It's called Armed Forces Fitness and is military-style circuit training which uses current and ex-military instructors so they know a thing or two about training, and about motivation.  For me, the motivation part is as important as the actual exercise as basically I'm a lazy bastard who needs a kick when it comes to exercise and the encouragement and driving works for me.  Only last week in the warm-up the words "Huddart, get your belly off the ground" rang out as I tried to skive doing a few press-ups.  Before I started, I could not have run around Harrogate's Stray for an hour doing vigorous exercise but now I can.  I know I'll never be in the top group but I'm not bothered about that, all I want is to be a bit fitter week on week.  Perhaps if I gave up beer and pies this may come a bit easier but I digress.

So, a few weeks ago, I got a call from Jonny Quinn who is the owner of Armed Forces Fitness and he told me that Harrogate Borough Council had contacted him with a view to putting boot camps, as they wrongly named them, out to tender.  This meant that despite setting up a business over the past 3 years and attracting over 250 members, some Council jobs-worth thought, "this seems popular, let's have a slice of money from it".  So, Jonny completed the tender which was a woeful document given that it came from a local authority who use tenders as a major part of their procurement process - there had been no consultation with anyone who used AFF or any of the other fitness groups that operate on The Stray.  His tender was not successful.  The contract, despite Harrogate Borough Council having a "buy local" policy, was awarded to a company in Wetherby, West Yorkshire.

When I heard this news I was livid.  The Council told Jonny that AFF would have to stop running classes on The Stray from 1st May and that the new company, Matt Woods Boot Camps, would take over the rights for "boot camps".  For a start, I quickly established that Matt Woods, who I'm sure is a lovely bloke, had no experience in military fitness and had no military instructors.  His Facebook page had 14 followers as opposed to the 500+ of AFF.  I sent Matt Wood several emails quizzing him about his classes and got some very evasive answers, then he stopped replying.  He had committed himself to a three-year contract with Harrogate Borough Council which was in the region of a total of £24,000.  The basic flaw here of course was that he would have no members, or certainly not from the AFF guys as the training he offered was like a cosy chat over tea and scones compared to the hard-core stuff we are used to from AFF.  So my first question to HBC's chief executive was where was Matt Wood's revenue going to come from?

As well as contacting HBC, I also contacted Andrew Jones, our MP, and Ruby Kitchen from The Harrogate Advertiser.  Ruby immediately asked the question of HBC, as I had done, if they thought their actions were legal first and foremost.  The Stray is owned by the Queen and forms part of the Estate of The Duchy of Lancaster and is managed by Harrogate Borough Council under the terms of an Act or Parliament called The Stray Act 1985 which also has some amended by-laws.  I'm not really sure if Queen Lizzie the Second gives two shits about who runs around on The Stray but I guess she is comforted by the fact that it's in the safe hands of Harrogate Borough Council. This is sarcasm folks.  Ruby continued to question along this line and thankfully on Wednesday morning last week HBC contacted Jonny to tell him the good news - they were acting outside their powers by trying to charge for the use of The Stray.  All future attempts at charging were to be shelved and AFF was free to continue.  To say that I was delighted was an understatement.  Not only would I be free to carry on doing the one form of exercise I enjoy, but we had taken on a hapless local authority, and won.

There are some obnoxious local councillors and none more so than Caroline Bayliss Roger De Courcey or whatever she calls herself these days, and I am led to believe she had a hand in this - in the same way she had a hand in The Turkish Baths fiasco, banning the male-only sessions and twisting the reasons for doing so.  The delicious irony of all this is that she was trying to regulate who the good people of Harrogate could and couldn't exercise with when she is not averse to a few fags apparently!

So much of what happened here epitomises what is wrong with local government - for a start, there is Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council dabbling in the running of Harrogate, both with big "head office" set ups and both with massive overheads which no private-sector business could absorb or justify.  Why not just have one?  Then there is the question of revenues - they clearly saw AFF as fair game to see what they could screw out of them rather than look closer to home and make some cost reductions through improving their own inefficiency.  Waste is evident in so much of what they do - waste that private-sector businesses cut out many years ago.

Anyway, as I cheesily said, this was a victory over bureaucracy for common sense - power to the people as Citizen Smith used to chant.  It's great that all the AFF members stood up for themselves and were very supportive of the "campaign" and there was support from many areas and in fairness, Andrew Jones acted very quickly once he was made aware of the situation but Ruby from The Advertiser was our ace and chased the Council for an answer - and the right answer at that!  So, all is well with the world again - until Harrogate Council move on to the next thing that they can fuck up.  And spare a thought for Matt Woods - I wonder what he thinks of Harrogate Borough Council?  He was the winning bidder for a service they weren't even legally entitled to charge for!  Happy Days.