Plans are coming together for a number of events in 2025.

• Harrogate Spring Flower Show 24-27th April 2025. HIP will be designing, building and entering a Creative Border at the Spring Flower Show, focussing on the town’s twinning with Bagnères de Luchon and its stunning location close to the Spanish border in the Pyrenees.

• A visit to Harrogate by a delegation from Luchon is an exciting prospect for April 2025. Letters have been exchanged at civic level, and the visit will involve key people from the town who have facilitated our visits there in recent years. It coincides with the Spring Flower Show and other elements for the visit are being planned.

• Anzac Day Commemoration on Sunday 27 April 2025 at 1pm, at the Stonefall War Graves Cemetery in Harrogate. Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, this is one of the largest CWGC sites in the North of England. Buried at Stonefall are 97 Royal Australian Air Force crew, and 23 Royal New Zealand Air Force crew – four of whom came from Wellington, Harrogate’s sister city. There are also over 660 Canadian aircrew, one of whom came from Barrie, Ontario, which is also twinned with Harrogate. After the second world war, visitors came to Harrogate to visit their war dead, and one couple moved permanently from New Zealand to Harrogate to be near their son. The links which grew then remain important today.

The ANZAC Commemoration in Harrogate is now organised by a separate Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) which has been formed to take the Commemoration forward. www.anzacremembrancecio.org 

ANZAC day 2025 is Friday 25 April, when ceremonies are held at dawn across Australia and New Zealand. Permission has been obtained to hold the ceremony on the nearest Sunday.

• Along with our friends in Harrogate’s twin of Barrie in Ontario, we will be marking Sir Robert Barrie Day on 7 June 2025, and Canada Day 1 July 2025. Sir Robert Barrie – after whom Barrie is named – has local connections and is buried in Ripley, just north of Harrogate.

• Luchon is once again holding its annual Fetes de Fleurs festival of flowers and music in August 2025, and plans are being made for Harrogate representation once again. The Tour de France 2025 also features Luchon once again this year, with a mountain top finish at the fabulous Superbagnères ski resort above the town.

• We are also continuing to work on some longer term initiatives, including town signs which mention the twinning locations, and exploring opportunities for vocational training exchanges.

Watch this space for further news as plans develop…!