Harrogate is still lovely, but York (where I live) and Helmsley are pretty bad now.

Councils being greedy with parking fees and business rates are destroying small town centre shops.

I can’t comment on Helmsley parking fees as I go on the bus from Scarborough. This is my reason for visiting Helmsley sometimes
http://www.huntersofhelmsley.com/ it is a great little deli, we have nothing like this in Scarborough. When we’ve been going via Helmsley to somewhere else we always make time to look in here.

Pickering has a great market on Monday mornings with a nice cheese stall, something else we don’t have in Scarborough. I’ve seen cheeses there that I’ve not seen anywhere else round here.

York has my favourite beer shop in the country – House of the Trembling Madness, but we don’t get there very often because the train fares from Scarborough can be quite steep when you’re just wanting a trip out shopping. Very soon I will have to rely on York for HMV, I will be very disappointed when our’s closes, I used to shop there every Christmas and quite often through the year. We’re getting a Morrison’s convenience store in its place.