Calderdale Inside Out

“Catastrophic” – Harvey’s CEO describes business impact of Halifax Town Centre roadworks Latest town centre footfall data show Halifax business district footfall is down following £64m improvement plan This year family-run Harvey’s of Halifax will celebrate 100 years in business, with over 75 of those years, trading on Commercial Street in Halifax. But, over the past two years business has taken a nosedive. In the latest episode of Calderdale inside Out’s podcast, the CEO of Harvey’s, fourth generation owner Tracy Harvey, describes the impact of Halifax’s £64m town centre improvement scheme saying “It genuinely has been catastrophic for us. Two years is a long time for customers to change their habits and find other places to go.” On Commercial Street, recorded footfall fell by almost a third between 2024 and 2025 – and the latest numbers show just a slight 5% recovery following the end of the roadworks at the top end of town.. And At Corn Market, the latest figures are showing 27% down from the previous year. Woolshops data is broadly flat with just a 0.7% increase year on year. But Harveys isn't giving up. Despite depleted cash reserves, higher business rates and rising staff costs, the store has opened two new departments — and Tracy says she remains determined that the business will not only survive, but thrive again adding: “I passionately believe in what we do as a business. I passionately believe in Halifax.” Listen now to Calderdale Inside Out. Also available on Apple, Spotify, and most other podcast platforms.

In this episode:- A listener asked us one simple question: is the council making money out of parking, and where does the money actually go? We uncover the policy from 2022 determined to get people out of their cars and the failed promise to deliver an Area Car Parking Strategy that supported delivery of that policy. And we also ask the question: is Calderdale Council breaking the law in how it spends that surplus? The new Reform administration is promising a review. The numbers £2.93m - the council’s own parking operating surplus for 2024/25 (roughly double 2021/22, and up about half on pre-pandemic). Over £1 million - separately, the amount the 2024/25 year-end accounts say was used to reduce an overspend in a completely different budget - the one that covers things like school transport for children with special needs, and waste. We keep this figure and the £2.93m strictly apart. About £14 a head - Calderdale’s parking surplus per resident. Third of England’s 35 big-city (metropolitan) boroughs, behind only Newcastle and Manchester - and the highest in West Yorkshire. Six towns, zero plans — Parking Area Plans were promised in 2022 as the evidence supporting the increase in car parking charge Subscribe to our newsletter on www.calderdaleinsideout.co.uk

KEY NUMBERS IN BRIEF £356,700 = Piece Hall surplus £244,505 = New Calderdale Council borrowing £450,000 = Calderdale Council SLA Grant £3,684,505 = Total Piece Hall debt When the council’s scrutiny committee met in January to consider the Piece Hall’s future funding the amount of surplus, the new council borrowing, and the record debt were not discussed. At that meeting, the chair of the children and young people’s scrutiny board, Cllr Leah Webster, told the committee: “When we’re in a funding situation like we are and we’re making cuts to disabled children’s access to childcare… it’s very difficult then to be looking at this as something that’s not one of those nice-to-haves.” The accounts record average staff numbers falling from 119 to 63, with the reduction falling overwhelmingly on casual and seasonal staff; a wage bill down from just under £3m a year to £2.2m -a saving larger than the surplus itself; marketing expenditure of £5,778 for the year; and repairs to the Grade I listed building reduced for the third consecutive year, to £78,294. In the same year, a “Restoration Levy” on gig tickets raised £143,000. No restricted or designated fund for the levy appears in the accounts. The £750,000 National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, by contrast, is held in a named restricted fund and was spent in full. The accounts also require a correction to our Part 1 reporting, which put the Trust’s loans at £3.4m. We can now reveal following inspection of the latest accounts that total borrowings across the Trust and its trading company stood at £3,684,505 at the September year-end -the highest in its history. Of that, £3,164,505 is owed to Calderdale Council, a figure confirmed in the council’s own audited accounts. The remaining £520,000 is owed to a lender not named in any filed document. During the same financial year, the Trust drew a further £244,505 of council lending, the first new council loan since 2020-21, in addition to the £450,000 annual grant. From April 2027 the loans begin to carry interest and repayments, a larger annual sum than this year’s surplus. In a statement to Calderdale Inside Out, the new council leader, Cllr Dan Sutherland, said the administration is investigating “what the Council was aware of regarding the Piece Hall Trust’s finances at the time the SLA was agreed.” The Piece Hall Trust have been approached for comment. Check out part 1 of our investigation below. Thanks for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it Next episode: car parking in Calderdale -a major review is under way, we’ll be investigating the past, present, and future of car parking charge in Calderdale. And if you have a story you’d like us to look into get in contact: [email protected] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.calderdaleinsideout.co.uk

I love the Piece Hall. Growing up I sold copies of the Halifax Evening Courier outside the Westgate entrance. I was there when the ‘Multi-Coloured Swop Shop’ turned up complete with Keith Chegwin and Maggie Philbin. And I’ve watched it transform from down-at-heel Saturday market to a unique and much-loved gig venue. So, for me, this is a bitter-sweet investigation. But loving the place doesn’t mean looking at it through rose tinted spectacles. And the more time I’ve spent with audited accounts, Companies House filings, hidden documents, and recordings of council meetings the more my rose-tinted glasses have misted over. Here are just a few of the questions we ponder in the latest episode of Calderdale Inside Out:- - Would Marks and Spencer still be in Halifax if it wasn’t for the Piece Hall? According to Nicola Chance-Thompson (CEO of Piece Hall Trust) they wouldn’t. - How independent was a value for money report stating that the Piece Hall is worth £680 million to the local economy? - And just how much cash have Calderdale tax-payers pumped into the Piece Hall? The Trust, the council and the others were all given the chance to reply, and I’ll tell you what they said and what they didn’t say. It’s all in the episode. Subscribe to our Substack and listen now Thanks for supporting local journalism. And if you have a story you would like us to investigate please email on : [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.calderdaleinsideout.co.uk

During the local election campaign, you may have seen a rather flattering claim doing the rounds. Starting with local MP Josh Fenton Glynn the news was quickly shared by local election Labour candidates and Labour groups across Calderdale. Calderdale, apparently, was one of the best places in England to raise a family. Lovely news, you might think. And, on the face of it, exactly the sort of thing any council or political party would want to shout about. The problem is the date. When Calderdale Inside Out followed the claim back, it appeared to lead not to a fresh 2026 study, but to research originally published in 2019 by Oxford Home Schooling. That ranking placed Calderdale fourth in England, based on a fairly narrow set of measures: Ofsted ratings, school-place availability and housing affordability. Then, in April 2026, the same ranking seemed to pop back up online through a news aggregator site based in Hong Kong. From there, it found its way into local political campaigning. And that is where this gets interesting. Because this is not really a story about whether Calderdale is a good place to bring up children. Plenty of people would say it is. Many of us live here because we love the place, not because a spreadsheet told us to. The more useful question is this: when politicians share a statistic during an election campaign, how much care should they take to check where it came from? Especially when that statistic is being used not just as good news, but as evidence of a political record. In the episode, we follow the trail from the original 2019 ranking, through its reappearance online in April 2026, to the way it was shared locally during the election campaign. We also look at Calderdale Council’s own more recent performance data. And, as you might expect, the current picture is not quite as neat as a social media graphic. Some indicators are moving in the right direction. Others are not. Some put Calderdale in a much less flattering position when compared with similar councils. That does not mean the original 2019 ranking was wrong in its own context. But it does mean voters are entitled to ask a fairly basic question: if a political claim is based on old data, should that be made clear? Calderdale Labour has been approached for comment. The paper trail For anyone who wants to check the sources, these are the key links behind the episode: * The original 2019 article: Revealed: the best and worst places to raise children in England — Inside Conveyancing / Oxford Home Schooling.Read the 2019 article * The April 2026 aggregator article: Best and worst places in England to raise a family - full list — OB News / Newspoint, published 9 April 2026.Read the April 2026 article * Calderdale Council’s Q3 2025/26 Corporate Performance Report: the council’s own latest published performance report.Download the Q3 report * The social media post: screenshot included above. * Who shared the data (from our research): Cllr Adam Wilkinson; Cllr Sarah Courtney; Cllr Scott Patient; Cllr Kelly Thornham; Stuart Cairney (Labour candidate); Calderdale Labour; Skircoat Labour Councillors; North Halifax Labour. The full story is in the podcast. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.calderdaleinsideout.co.uk