Cllr Duncan Expresses Hopes for ATF4
Cllr Keane Duncan, who is in charge of transport at North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC), has expressed hopes that his authority will be awarded money from the fourth round of the Active Travel Fund (ATF4).
He spoke to the Stray Ferret in what is really a puff piece, but which covered Harrogate’s active travel schemes.
Failure to Make Any Progress on Current Active Travel Schemes
The facts are that:
- Cllr Duncan presided over the ripping out of the only Covid-19 era active travel scheme, Beech Grove
- NYCC have failed to make any progress on their ATF2 schemes since they were funded in 2020
- after 5 years of the Otley Road cycleway project, Cllr Duncan is now floating the idea of abandoning it
Lots of Promises But No Delivery
Despite this record of NYCC failure on active travel, Cllr Duncan told the Stray Ferret that NYCC will be asking Active Travel England for more funding in ATF4, for ‘more comprehensive’ active travel schemes.
This is because the funding NYCC bid for and received in ATF2 is now not enough to go ahead with the projects (Victoria Avenue and A59 Knaresborough Road).
‘We are progressing on [the ATF2] schemes but there’s the prospect of further funding in active travel round four and there might be a case for using funding we have already secured and funding we might secure in that round to deliver much more comprehensive active travel schemes in the future. So we are really just waiting to see the outcome of that.’
cllr keane duncan
This is classic North Yorkshire – there’s no delivery, but they always string you along with promises of future action.
They have proved over 5 years on Otley Road that they are unable to deliver any significant active travel scheme, but they keep making promises of future action.
The promised future schemes are even bigger and better than the ones they are currently failing to deliver, if you believe it…but the future schemes will also fail to materialise.
Good councils: active travel scheme > deliver it > move on to the next active travel project.
NYCC: active travel scheme > fail to deliver it/abandon it > make promises about new, bigger and better schemes > fail to deliver them.
Kex Gill
Cllr Duncan told the paper that the A59 realignment at Kex Gill is about to start. Here you see NYCC’s real priorities: cars.
The active travel projects are all stalled or abandoned, but the £69 million scheme for driving to Skipton is going ahead.
NYCC has endorsed York & North Yorkshire’s Routemap to Carbon Negative, which states that car use must reduced by 48% by 2030, and cycling increased by 900%.
And yet NYCC is devoting its resources to expensive environmentally-damaging road-building projects, and cancelling active travel schemes.