The challenges that we will have to face up to in 2025 - Carl Les

My dad would stay up with the hard pressed night shift to deal with the hundreds of bleary eyed travellers for their final tea stop before pulling in to be disgorged at Gallowgate, Newcastle. Often they would return on Boxing Day ready for work the following day. Holidays were not so extensive in those days.

When we built the motel at Leeming Bar, this hectic trend of travelling continued for some time, but as larger premises with a larger staff, some of the pressure was removed. So we would gather round a Christmas meal and reflect with some contentment on how the year had been. Leeming Café did little for New Year`s Eve, apart from providing a welcome stop for those unfortunate enough to have to travel somewhere that night.

The motel was much more of an event and so as a family we were kept busy. But after the first couple of days of the New Year, it went very quiet and then we would gather again to think about the future. It’s a practice I’ve kept to all my life and probably most of you do too.

Crystal ball gazing can be a perilous occupation, but probably better to do it and get it wrong, than not to do it, and get it wrong. So let me share some of my insights, incisive or otherwise, for 2025.

Whatever the cause, and therefore the solutions, we know that we are experiencing climate change in our lifetimes and even that of our children.

There are more extremes, of heat, cold, wind and above all wet. Only in the last few days we have heard about major storms in the Pacific, witnessed a number of storms in the UK, and endured localised flooding in the Kirbymoorside area.

We need to ensure that our plans to cope with disasters are robust – and here I must thank council staff and local volunteers for turning out to help the community cope with the need for a warm space and a warm meal – as well as finding the funds to put flood prevention measures in place.

This is a highly visible demand on our services, as is maintaining our roads and footpaths, but we also have a huge but less visible demand for services such as caring for the elderly and children with safeguarding or special educational needs.

We have discussed this at length but these demands show no sign of diminishing. We know we will have to cope, but we need the funds to cope and we also know that these funds may be in short supply. The £14m withdrawal of support for rural services will add another severe demand on our stretched finances.

Thank heavens we have the savings made because of the reorganisation of local government in North Yorkshire. Even with that we will be debating in February stopping some services rather than just looking for efficiencies. Having reorganised most of our service areas now, just over one year in, it is timely to review how well they are working.

On a more positive note, the £15m Shared Prosperity Fund (“the Brexit dividend”) will continue for at least another year and this has been helpful in supporting many activities in North Yorkshire.

Another challenge to come will be coping with mandatory housing targets. We have always been pro-growth in North Yorkshire, building out more homes than scheduled in the local plans, but targeting over 4,000 will be challenging in land allocations and in the capacity of the construction industry.

Developing our new local plan has seen 1,500 sites put forward for evaluation. Planning is one of the service areas under pressure across the country, not just in North Yorkshire, but here we have a priority as we must merge eight systems into one to allow flexible deployment of resources and a standard level of service delivery across the county.

We have a principle at the council that we only debate what we can influence, i.e. what is our core business. But we cannot be immune to what is happening abroad.

The illegal war in Ukraine has hit us financially and we have many Ukrainian refugees still welcome, living amongst us. The relatively peaceful revolt in Syria has resonance as one of our number`s family still lives there. The US election will have an effect. No amount of crystal ball gazing will show us until it happens.

I wish everybody a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

Carl Les is the leader of North Yorkshire Council.