KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club received the King’s Award for Voluntary Service at a celebration evening last week with a range of special guests, volunteers, supporters and partners.

The award recognises the hard work the club does to support ethnically diverse women and girls through sport, leadership, and community development.

Bolton Council cabinet member for Stronger Communities and the VCSE sector Cllr Rabiya Jiva said: “It’s so well deserved and what a fabulous evening celebrating and seeing new leaders taking the stage with such confidence!

“It has been amazing seeing Khadija and the team going from strength to strength over the years.

A special celebration event was held (Image: KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club)

“The beauty of it all is seeing women and girls claiming their space and owning it!”

The award was announced last November as part of the King’s birthday and has now been presented to the group.

Special guests included the Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester Diana Hawkins, Mayor of Bolton Cllr David Chadwick, council leader Cllr Nick Peel with Bolton CVS also attendance.

The club supports girls through sport, leadership and community development (Image: KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club)

Both Ms Hawkins and Cllr Peel praised KRIMMZ for its deep community roots and its impact on improving access to opportunities for girls and women who are often underrepresented in sport.

They reflected on KRIMMZ’s journey from a grassroots group to a nationally recognised organisation, highlighting its culturally responsive approach and strong local partnerships.

Representatives from a wide range of partner organisations were also present, showing the collaborations that have supported KRIMMZ’s growth and sustainability.

The award is the highest that can be given to voluntary organisations (Image: KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club)

KRIMMZ Girls Youth Club director Khadija Patel said she feels the award belongs to the whole Bolton community.

She said being honoured like this reflects years of trust-building, volunteer commitment, and belief in creating spaces where women and girls feel welcomed and valued.

The club not only recognised their achievements so far but also took a moment to renew its commitment to continue working together to improve opportunities for future generations.

It now aims to continues to deliver inclusive programmes across Bolton, using sport as a tool to build confidence, leadership, and community connection among women and girls.

Mystics once spent years meditating in caves in search of transcendence. Today, a growing number of people believe something similar can be reached in a single afternoon with the help of a psychedelic drug. Swallow a capsule of psilocybin or take a carefully supervised dose of LSD and you may encounter what many describe as one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives.

Modern clinical trials appear to support this. Several studies suggest that the intensity of a “mystical-type experience” during a psychedelic session predicts the degree of improvement in depression, anxiety or addiction. A recent review, for example, reports a consistent statistical link between mystical experiences and improved mental health.

It is an enticing idea: that healing comes through a profound encounter with unity, sacredness or ultimate reality. But do we really need mystical experiences to get better?

To understand why this question matters, it helps to step back. Long before psychedelics entered psychiatry, philosophers and theologians were fascinated by mystical states. In the early 20th century, the psychologist William James argued in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience that mystical states should be judged “by their fruits, not by their roots” – meaning by their effects on people’s lives rather than by debates about their metaphysical truth.

Others, including the British writer on Christian mysticism Evelyn Underhill and the philosopher of religion Walter Stace, developed what later became known as “perennial philosophy”: the idea that a common core experience lies at the heart of the world’s religions.

This way of thinking has quietly shaped modern psychedelic science. In 1962, the psychiatrist Walter Pahnke conducted the Good Friday Experiment, giving theology students psilocybin in a church. Many reported experiences that were strikingly similar to those described by classical mystics.

Around the same time, British-born psychiatrist Humphry Osmond – who coined the word “psychedelic” – developed treatment approaches designed to induce powerful “peak experiences” that could trigger lasting psychological change.

Today, large clinical trials at universities such as Johns Hopkins and Imperial College London have revived this approach. Researchers routinely measure whether participants have had a “mystical-type experience” using a standardised questionnaire known as the mystical experience questionnaire, or MEQ.

Participants are asked to rate statements such as “I had an experience of unity with ultimate reality” or “I had an experience which cannot be described adequately in words”. The higher the score, the more likely someone is classified as having had a full mystical experience.

But this raises a conundrum. If an experience is supposedly “ineffable” – beyond words – how accurately can it be captured by ticking boxes on a survey?

Some critics argue that the MEQ builds in assumptions drawn from perennial philosophy. By asking about “ultimate reality” or “sacredness”, it may reflect a particular interpretation of mystical experience rather than a neutral description. As one analysis notes, there is a risk that the scale partly reproduces the very theory it aims to test.

Expectations may further complicate matters

Many participants in psychedelic trials arrive already primed for transcendence. They have read glowing media coverage, listened to podcasts or watched documentaries promising life-changing breakthroughs. Research shows that such expectations can significantly shape subjective drug experiences.

My colleagues and I saw just how powerful suggestion can be in a study nicknamed “tripping with the god helmet”. Participants wore a sham brain-stimulation device that we described as capable of activating their “mystical lobes”. In reality, no stimulation was delivered. Yet nearly half reported mystical-type experiences, some describing them as deeply meaningful.

In another experiment, placebo psychedelics administered in a carefully staged environment – complete with evocative music and imagery – produced strikingly similar reports. These findings suggest that context and expectation are not minor side notes. They can play a central role in shaping what people experience.

None of this means psychedelic therapy is “just a placebo”. The drugs clearly alter brain activity and experience in powerful ways. But it does raise the possibility that mystical experiences are not the sole or even primary driver of therapeutic change.

After all, correlation does not equal causation. A large body of psychiatric research warns against assuming that because two things occur together, one must cause the other. Mystical experiences may simply be one visible marker of other processes, such as increased emotional openness, the development of new neural connections or changes in entrenched beliefs.

Super placebos

Some researchers have even described psychedelics as super placebos: substances that amplify expectancy effects rather than bypass them. That may sound dismissive, but it points to something important. Expectations, beliefs and meaning-making are not incidental to healing; they are often central to it.

When used carefully in structured settings, psychedelics may act less like magic bullets and more like catalysts. They intensify whatever psychological processes are already underway.

For some, that may include feelings of unity and transcendence. For others, it may involve confronting grief, fear or long-buried memories. Stanislav Grof, a pioneer of psychedelic therapy, once compared these substances to microscopes for the mind – tools that reveal otherwise hidden aspects of experience.

The key point is this: while mystical experiences often go hand in hand with improvement, they may not be essential. And on their own, they may not be enough to create lasting change.

Lasting therapeutic benefits appear to emerge from a web of interacting factors: brain changes, emotional breakthroughs, supportive settings, skilled therapists and the integration work that follows the session. Focusing too narrowly on whether someone scored above a mystical threshold risks oversimplifying a complex process.

The psychedelic renaissance has opened exciting possibilities for mental health treatment. But if the field is to mature, it may need to move beyond the assumption that transcendence is the secret ingredient.

The future of psychedelic therapy may depend less on chasing mystical peaks and more on understanding the conditions that help people translate intense experiences – mystical or otherwise – into durable, meaningful change.

SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Seahawks are going up for sale in accordance with the wishes of late team owner Paul Allen.

Allen’s estate announced Wednesday that it has begun the process of selling the team, which is coming off its second Super Bowl victory in franchise history. The NFL did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, nor did Allen’s estate have anything further to add beyond its brief statement, it said.

Ahead of the Super Bowl, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell commended Allen’s estate on its time owning the Seahawks.

“They’re in the Super Bowl, and I think from that standpoint they’ve done a really important job in the context of the trust and the execution of that,” Goodell said. “But eventually the team will need to be sold in accordance with that. That will be Jody’s decision for when she does that, and we will be supportive of that.”

Investment bank Allen & Company and law firm Latham & Watkins will lead the sales process, which is estimated to continue through the offseason. NFL owners must then ratify a final purchase agreement.

The estate said the sale is consistent with Allen’s directive to eventually sell his sports holdings and direct all estate proceeds to philanthropy.

The Seahawks have been in the Allen family since 1997, when Paul Allen bought the team for $194 million from then-owner Ken Behring. Allen was critical in keeping the Seahawks in Seattle, which is where the team is expected to remain after the sale is finalized. The Seahawks have a lease at Lumen Field that runs through 2032 with three 10-year options.

Since Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, died in 2018 from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma at 65, the Seahawks and the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers have been owned by his sister, Jody. The estate agreed in September to sell the Trail Blazers to an investment group led by Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon. The Trail Blazers will remain in Portland as part of the deal, which could be completed this spring.

The last NFL team to be sold was the Washington Commanders in 2023. A group led by Josh Harris that includes Magic Johnson bought the team from longtime owner Dan Snyder and his family for a record $6.05 billion.

It already has been an offseason of change for the Seahawks less than two weeks removed from their Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots.

The Las Vegas Raiders plucked away offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak and hired him as their head coach. The Seahawks are moving to hire San Francisco 49ers tight ends coach and run game coordinator Brian Fleury as their offensive coordinator, a person with knowledge of the hiring process said Sunday, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because a deal was still being worked on.

The Seahawks’ roster could look quite different in 2026, too.

Defensive starters safety Coby Bryant, cornerbacks Josh Jobe and Riq Woolen and edge rusher Boye Mafe will become unrestricted free agents this offseason. Offensive standouts wide receiver/return specialist Rashid Shaheed and running back Kenneth Walker III will be unrestricted free agents in March, too.

Both Shaheed and Walker, who was the Super Bowl MVP, have said publicly they would like to return to Seattle next season.

Should the Seahawks’ sale wrap up by this offseason, though, the team will not be owned by the Allen family for the first time in nearly three decades.

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

According to the Mental Health Foundation, around three-quarters of UK suicides are men, with around three times as many men dying by suicide than women.

But despite this, men are less likely than women to seek help – only 36 per cent of referrals to NHS talking therapies are for men.

This is something Jeff Moritz, 47, CEO of Little Hulton-based group Heads up Gentlemen, is hoping to change.

Award winner Bill (Image: Dan Dougherty)

“My initial idea was just to do a podcast”, said Jeff, “but I saw Pete posting wellbeing stuff on Facebook, so I thought we could do something more.”

Pete is the co-founder of Heads up Gentlemen with Jeff. The group meets every Wednesday at the Peel Park Pavilion, Little Hulton, with other meetups taking place on Fridays and Mondays at Pendlebury Social Club, Swinton, and Hug in a Mug, Walkden.

Any local men can join in and turn up if they want, coming for the games, the chat, and the sense of togetherness.

The group celebrated its one-year anniversary on Friday with an awards ceremony dedicated to everyone who’s helped them reach this significant milestone.

Co-founder Pete Day (left) with Lee, who handles the group’s media (Image: Dan Dougherty)

“I’m very proud of my lived experience,” said Jeff, “I’ve had mental health issues, I’ve had addiction issues, I’m used to talking because I have done it from a very young age.”

The guys host game nights, bring in guest speakers and lecturers, go out into the community, do charity work. Most important, however, is the friendships forged between men who otherwise might find it difficult to meet people.

It’s this authenticity that Jeff believes has led to the relative success of his organisation compared to other similar groups.

“It’s a real brotherhood,” Jeff told me, “and that’s what keeps me going – it’s the feedback from the guys.”

Even the basic opportunity to socialise with a like-minded, empathetic group of people is enough to significantly boost some men’s mood.

“One of our members – Bill – got married last year, and he invited all of us to his stag do”, Jeff told me.

“Some of our guys don’t have the best social skills, so this is the kind of opportunity they may not have had before.”

Mike wins an award (Image: Dan Dougherty)

Attendee Douglas Short, 81, echoed much of what Jeff said.

“The support is invaluable,” said Douglas, “it helps you in ways you can’t see.

“When you ask me how important this is in the community, I’d have to say ‘extremely important.’”

Douglas, who started as an attendee, has moved towards working with the group to organise events. Several current Heads up Gentlemen collaborators were former attendees, a testament to how willing people are to help the organisation they feel has helped them.

“It is extremely important to put something back into the group that gave me so much,” said Douglas.

Other members gave stories of being near suicide, or mired in the depths of drug or drink addictions, before finding the group.

Douglas Short said that Heads up Gentlemen had made a ‘fantastic change to his life’ (Image: Dan Dougherty)

“I put the success down to our authenticity,” said Pete Day, co-founder of Heads up Gentlemen.

“We try to keep it fun – if we were too serious then it could trigger some people.

“And I’ve got a lot of experience myself with addiction and things like that.

“I relate with the guys a lot.”

‘Guys talking to guys’ was a phrase that came up repeatedly, based on the belief that men find it easier to open up in an all-male environment than in a mixed one – another thing that Heads up Gentlemen does differently.

Of course, running an ever-expanding group isn’t an easy – or cheap – enterprise, and Jeff is constantly battling to keep his head above water.

“This is a seven-day-a-week job.

“I have savings from when I ran a company in America, but I’m going through them quite quickly.

Award winner Trevor (Image: Dan Dougherty)

“People want proof of concept, which I have now, but I didn’t know that at first.”

He wants to get the point where NHS doctors are able to signpost directly to his group, but this is a process – one that’s going to require hard work and patience.

“We’re going to work on getting qualified as counsellors,” Jeff said, “and do that training.

“We put flyers in the GP surgery, but doctors can’t refer people to us directly.”

All the non-unionist parties pushed a decision through based on official’s advice at City Hall

The DUP has failed to stop a new short-term let apartment block in East Belfast getting approval, despite locals stating the development is “not wanted by the community.”

Elected representatives at the February meeting of the Belfast City Council Planning Committee on a majority vote approved an application for the erection of a four-storey building to create 29 short-term let accommodation units at 341-345 Albertbridge Road, Belfast, BT5. The developer is ALMCC (NI) Limited, Shore Road, Holywood.

A vote on a DUP proposal to refuse the application saw seven votes in favour from the DUP and the UUP and 12 against from the other parties, and so it was approved.

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The application received 37 objections since it first went to the council last December. Despite this none of the relevant statutory bodies objected and the council’s Planning team recommended the application for approval.

In a council report, officers said the most recent objections state “the proposal is not wanted by the community” and it “would be better used for family housing to meet local needs, or for business premises benefiting local people.” The report states objectors raised “concerns about people coming and going, and not knowing who they are,” as well as concerns about community safety, overshadowing and loss of privacy.

The site at 341-345 Albertbridge Road was formerly the Beijing Restaurant, which has since been demolished, leaving the site vacant. The surrounding area is predominately a mix of commercial and residential uses, with homes immediately opposite. Connswater Retail Park is located to the rear of the site.

Short-term let accommodation refers to renting out a property or room for a short period, from one night to a few weeks or months, rather than for a permanent residence. Platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo list these types of rentals, which offer visitors more choice and a different experience from traditional hotels.

Despite the growing public mood against the proliferation of short-term let accommodation, developers who have had their applications refused at the council’s Planning Committee are increasingly appealing the decisions, with significant levels of success. As a result council officers are advising councillors to show rigorous policy-related and legal reasoning when objecting to applications they have recommended for approval.

Regarding the Albertbridge Road application, Planning officers said in a report: “Whilst community safety can be a material planning consideration, there is no evidence to suggest that the proposal would result in significant harm to the public interest in this respect that would override normal planning policy considerations.”

In another report the Planning officer states: “(The application) is not considered to impact negatively on existing residential amenity. It will strengthen and diversify short term let accommodation, is located close to public transport and within walking distance of a tourist attraction. Appropriate management arrangements will be secured via a planning condition.”

At the February meeting of the council’s Planning Committee, DUP Councillor Ruth Brooks said: “I don’t think this proposal aligns with the intent of the Belfast Local Development Plan, and in particular its housing policies. I have read through this report, and some of the conclusions reached under Policy HOU13, specifically the assertion that this site sits within an existing tourism cluster, is a considerable stretch of the imagination.

“The Oval, home to Glentoran Football Club is a periodic match-day venue. Organised tours operate on an enquiry-led basis and are very infrequent. There are no fixed tour dates, no structured daily programme, and no sustained tourism schedule.”

She added: “Mentioned within this report are EastSide Visitor Centre, CS Lewis Square and Templemore Baths Heritage Experience. These are important civic and heritage assets, but they primarily function as a daytime attraction within a wider city tourism offer. Visitors may spend part of the day in East Belfast as part of a broader itinerary, but overnight accommodation demand remains concentrated within the city centre.”

She said: “The history of this site is highly relevant. The Housing Executive had previously indicated there would be a residential development. That proposal failed not because the site was unsuitable for housing, but because the design did not meet the standards.

“East Belfast is not flush with land. We have to look at the land that we have and use it for housing.”

DUP Alderman Dean McCullough said: “If you drive up the Newtownards Road, you will see the limitations on land, when you compare that with the waiting lists for families who are languishing on them. It is critical that social housing is maximised in established working class communities, where people are in clear housing stress.”

He added: “I would be confident, and I don’t think anyone around this table would disagree with me, that if you knocked on doors in the surrounding area and asked people, their views would be pretty clear.” He said it was “clear there was a cohesion issue” and that “the community had made that clear through all the available avenues they have.”

A council officer replied: “Within our current development plan, that land isn’t zoned for housing. We have the incoming Local Policies Plan which will be zoning housing land to ensure we meet the aspirations of the Belfast Agenda.

“There will be a clear vehicle for people to make representations on land that they think will be appropriate. But at the moment this land is not zoned, and it would be premature for us to retain the land, or refuse planning permission on the basis that it could potentially come forward as housing land.”

She added: “In terms of community cohesion, and what are material considerations, we often have things that are absolute priorities for communities, but they don’t necessarily fall into material considerations for Planning. It hasn’t been demonstrated through any of the representations or any other evidence we have that bringing forward this proposal would impact the community in a negative way.

“I understand that community planning and engagement is really important. This was not a major application that would involve pre-community consultation. It is a local application that has been brought to the committee, and called in due to the objections and concerns. It is not our view that it would have the potential to have any significant impact on cohesion.”

Sinn Féin Councillor Ryan Murphy, and committee Chair, said at the meeting: “We need to be careful, in relation to planning appeals that have been made on the determination lists, that we are not willingly refusing something on the same grounds, for it to go to appeal and then be overturned for the same reasons.

“We are finding ourselves in a position where we have a disagreement between what our view is of a tourist cluster in comparison to what the Planning Appeals Commission say.”

An array of Belfast councillors from a variety of political parties have warned that communities all over the city could soon face a housing crisis caused by short-term lets, similar to the crisis caused by HMOs in areas such as the Holylands.

Last September, at a meeting of the council’s Licensing Committee, councillors and a council officer made reference to allegations that Tourism NI were certifying properties as short-term lets before they had planning permission, with one councillor stating short term lets were the “wild west” of the housing sector.

At the City Hall Planning Committee meeting last month, another controversial application, for a short term let accommodation in a 200 year old listed building close to the city centre, was withdrawn from the agenda without explanation.

The month before the application for the “retrospective change of use” from residential to short-term let accommodation at 39 Hamilton Street, in the Market area off Cromac Street, was deferred for a site visit. The building at the site has been operating as an AirBnB style short term accommodation without permission for almost two years, to the consternation of local residents and even local elected representatives. The Hamilton Street property consists of a three-bedroom, three-storey brick-built property, and is a Grade B2 listed building located within the Linen Conservation Area.

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Daniel Daniels, 28, had been released on licence from HMP Berwyn in Wrexham part way through a three-year sentence he was given at Bolton Crown Court in May 2024.

According to the Prisons and Probation Service Ombudsman he died on Saturday January 10 this year.

Daniels had been jailed after pleading guilty to dangerous driving, obstructing the police, driving without a licence, driving without insurance and failure to stop when ordered by police.

He also confessed to failing to provide a specimen for analysis.

Daniel Daniels was sentenced at Bolton Crown Court (Image: Anthony Moss)

During the sentencing hearing back in May 2024 Tanya Elahi, defending, said: “Upon his release from prison he will be motivated to change his ways while he is still young.”

Ms Elahi told the court Daniels was “deeply ashamed and remorseful” and that start the police chase that led to his driving offences was a “stupid moment”.

Recorder Alexandra Simmonds had taken Daniels’s remorse and guilty plea into account but reminded him he had driven through a “populated area, with pedestrians and children”.

Daniels, formerly of Crummock Grove, Farnworth, was on licence at the time and at his last sentencing the court heard he had seven previous convictions for 17 offences.

In February 2022 he had been jailed for 19 months after admitting to assault, affray and possessing a knife after an assault on his ex-partner.

Explaining how it carries out investigations, a statement on the ombudsman’s website said: “After we have been told about a death in custody, we will put a named investigator in charge of the investigation.

“They will find out as much as possible about what happened to the person before their death.

“This includes looking at all the relevant records and policies, together with interviews with relevant staff and prisoners or residents if required. 

“NHS England will also commission an independent clinical review of the healthcare given to the person before their death.

“At the end of the investigation we’ll share what we have found with the family and related organisations.”

The Prison and Probation Service’s investigation is currently ongoing.

The United States‘ stand-off with Iran is feared to be close to breaking out into a full-scale war in the Middle East.

A military operation could last several weeks and have a powerful impact on the region, sources have told Axios. 

It comes as tensions continue to grow between the US and Iran, after the two countries held indirect nuclear talks in Geneva on Tuesday. 

Before the talks, Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal.” 

A Trump adviser told Axios: “The boss is getting fed up. Some people around him warn him against going to war with Iran, but I think there is 90 per cent chance we see kinetic action in the next few weeks.” 

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The Trump administration threatened to take fresh military action against Iran in January over its nuclear programme and demanded that it make a deal with the US.

It followed Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June, in which the US bombed the country’s nuclear sites. 

Last month, President Trump said a “massive armada” was on the way and urged the regime to stop the killing of thousands of protesters.

Sources told Axios that a military operation would likely be much bigger than the US and Israel’s attack last year, and would have massive implications for the remainder of President Trump’s leadership. 

The US has built up a large military presence in the region, which includes two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets and multiple air defence systems. 

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The large military build-up will likely mean the president won’t withdraw from the region until Iran makes major concessions on its nuclear programme.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatened to sink any American aircraft carriers sent to the Middle East.

Two Israeli officials said Israel’s government was preparing for a scenario of war within days, Axios said. However, US sources said the Trump administration may need longer.  

Officials told Reuters the US military was getting ready for weeks-long operations in case President Trump ordered an attack. 

US troops withdrew from bases in Syria last week, possibly indicating its military was gearing up to prepare for an Iranian response to an attack. 

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It comes as Mr Trump criticised Sir Keir Starmer for his Chagos Islands deal on Wednesday, saying that if Iran did not strike a deal with the US, it may need to use Diego Garcia island, where a US-UK military base sits. 

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi began negotiations on Tuesday in Geneva. 

Officials stated Iran would have to come back with a detailed proposal for the US in two weeks. 

Mr Araghchi said the two countries had reached an understanding on “guiding principles” and that a path to agreement had begun. 

But Ayatollah Khamenei later warned President Trump that “the strongest army in the world can sometimes be slapped so hard it cannot get up”, according to Iranian media.

Rebecca Layton, spokesperson for Hospitality Association York (HAY), said proposals for a visitor levy come as businesses face difficult trading conditions while trying to appeal to price-conscious consumers.

The spokesperson added if charges put potential visitors off it would mean fewer shifts and jobs in an industry which tends to employ people at the start of their careers.

It comes after Labour Mayor David Skaith said he was focussed on getting any potential future charges right after speaking with more than 100 York and North Yorkshire businesses.

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The mayor said the tourism industry was a local success story but it put pressure on services.

He added a visitor levy would drive investment into communities and bring in cash which could be used to support hospitality businesses.

Research from the York and North Yorkshire Policy Lab, which was set up by the combined authority and York St John University, found £2-a-night charges could raise £52 million-a-year.

The mayor’s talks with hospitality businesses comes as a national consultation into visitor levies, also dubbed tourist taxes, closed on Wednesday, February 18.

Further work is set to be done on how the charges would be implemented in York and North Yorkshire, including whether to exempt residents from them.

Labour York and North Yorkshire Mayor David Skaith talking to Harrogate businesses about his plans for a visitor levy. Picture is from York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority

York Council’s Labour administration has been among those calling for local authorities to get powers to levy the charges, saying it could help fund services including for tourists and businesses.

But York hotels and the HAY industry body have said extra fees could put visitors off and warned of the knock-on effects on the wider local economy.

HAY spokesperson Ms Layton said hotels already supported local areas with jobs and investment and it was unknown how taking profits away from them would help the region.

She added although they were told up to a quarter of funds raised could be spent on benefits for hospitality and tourism, the rest could be lost plugging budget gaps.

The spokesperson said: “Hoteliers remain deeply concerned about the impact of further costs, tourism tax supporters often cite that similar tourism levies are commonplace in other overseas destinations, however this does not consider the fact those countries pay an average of 10 per cent VAT on hospitality, compared to 20 per cent in the UK.

“Furthermore, data highlights that of the 32 million tourists to York and North Yorkshire, only 6.1 million stay overnight, meaning less than 20 per cent of tourists are to be targeted for this tourist tax.

“This means 80 per cent of tourists will not be paying this tax back into the local economy, and further emphasises hospitality is being unfairly penalised.

“Whilst the City of York Council may have been able to garner some support from York’s residents, the campaign for a tourism levy has little to no support in North Yorkshire, who overwhelmingly feel that the idea of doing anything to deter tourism is outrageous.

“This tax will also be a further cost for businesses, the wider events sector will also be affected.”

Mr Skaith said he would make sure he prioritised the places and services that feel the most pressure without costing residents if the charges are brought in.

The mayor said: “A visitor levy could be a total game changer for our region, it’s an opportunity to drive investment into our communities, and back businesses in our tourism and hospitality sectors with the support we all know we need, but nobody has the money for right now.

“We must get this right for our region and that’s what I’m focussed on as we go through this process.”