A TOWN centre bar in Harrogate has been granted temporary planning permission to put tables, chairs and an enclosure barrier outside its premises in Montpellier Parade, in the town centre, to serve food and drink.

Planners have ruled that tables and chairs must be removed from the area outside permitted hours of 11am and 10.30pm each day.

CHARITY RIDE: Fundraising efforts to provide a new headquarters will have Bedale Scouts and Guides busy with two events. Ten members, parents and other supporters are taking part in a sponsored coast-to- coast cycle ride from Whitehaven to Sunderland over the bank holiday weekend. It will be followed on Saturday, August 31, by a clothes sale in the Chantry Hall, Bedale, from 10am to 3pm. Admission free.

CHANGING DIRECTION: Knaresborough Town Council is to install more direction signs in an effort to attract more drivers to the fringe-of-town park-and-ride scheme near the town's bypass at St James's Retail Park.

TREE PLANTING: Knaresborough Town Council has taken up the offer of a scheme to provide free walnut trees for planting on village greens - even though it does not have a village green. The council has decided it will plant the trees on one of its prominent open spaces.

SALON REFUSAL: Planners have refused an application to convert a hairdresser's at 42A Church Avenue, Bilton, Harrogate, into a dog grooming salon. Officials say a dog salon would create noise and disturbance, harming the amenity of neighbours.

QUILTING CLASSES: The Romanby Quilters group is looking for new members. Meetings are held on the first and third Thursdays of every month in the Methodist church hall, starting on September 5. For more details, call (01609) 772120 or 775237.

ON THE MOVE: Gerry Nolan, finance director of Scarborough NHS Trust for the past eight years, is moving to the Bedford and Luton Community Trust. The trust's chief executive, Robert Crawford, who is retiring next month, is to be replaced by Alison Guy, while the general manager of acute services, Julie Lowe, has left to take up a new post.