The people of Harrogate and Knaresborough have given a resounding
'no' to North Yorkshire County Council ('NYCC') plans to build a
so-called Harrogate
relief road through Bilton Fields and close to the Nidd Gorge.
78% of the 15,500 respondents were against it.
Any reasonable council would accept the definitive answer given by
respondents, but NYCC only says it won't take the so-called relief
road any further 'at this time'.
The NYCC report on the results of the congestion study
suggests more road-building plans - a Killinghall bypass, and a
possible south-western bypass from the B6162 Otley Road to the A61
Leeds Road. County councillors will discuss the report on Thursday
29th August 2019.
Measures which attracted support include:
improved cycling and walking infrastructure (77%)
park & ride (71%)
smarter travel choices & behaviour change (75%)
bus lanes and priority (59%)
One possible next step is preparation of 'bid-ready' cycling and
walking routes so funding opportunities won't be missed.
Other interesting points arising from the report include:
the Otley Road cycle path is due to be built 'after the UCI World
Road Cycle Championships in September. Exact programme dates are
still to be determined.' (Para. 2.7)
on efforts to increase active travel to schools and businesses via
Open Harrogate, the report says that take up has been mixed.
'...[S]ustainable travel officers report that whilst the need for
interventions and an expressed desire to shift towards more
sustainable and active travel is recognised by the general public,
getting them to take action on their behaviours and reduce single
occupancy car use is extremely difficult and will take a lot of
further time and investment.' {Para 2.16)
NYCC's Communications team paid for advertising on Twitter and
Facebook, in the Harrogate Advertiser, and online with the Harrogate
Informer during the congestion study (paras 3.11-3.13)
the 'free text' section of the online questionnaire resulted in
27.9% of comments being 'predominantly critical of the relief road
proposal', and 7.8% of comments supporting 'fully segregated cycle
lanes and the need for joined-up infrastructure' (para 5.7)
the report complains that Nidd Gorge Community Action
misrepresented the facts (paras 6.3 to 6.6) on east-west
connectivity. In fact, NYCC's information tried to present the road
as for local traffic, when it was clear from documents including the
WSP report that east-west connectivity was a major driver for the
proposal
