Recommendation to Proceed with Harrogate Station Gateway

North Yorkshire Council Corporate Director Karl Battersby will make a recommendation to proceed with Harrogate Station Gateway at a council meeting on 30th May 2023.

The Corporate Director’s report to the Executive sets out the recommendation to:

• make the Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) needed for the scheme
• submit a Full Business Case (FBC) to West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), who hold the funding, and
• accept the funding

WYCA’s Process and the Timetable

As the funding comes through WYCA, the scheme has to follow WYCA’s governance and assurance process. WYCA has an investment strategy which sets out stages in the progress of a project (image above).

Harrogate Station Gateway’s progress through the stages shown in the graphic has been delayed because of a threat of legal action (para 2.3 of the Corporate Director’s report). This led to a third consultation on the project, which had not originally been planned.

Station Gateway is now at Decision Point 2. The Outline Business Case (OBC) has already been submitted, and a FBC and detailed design are the next steps (4.1).

A contractor has been engaged on an Early Contractor Involvement basis, and a construction phase plan is being developed (14.1).

According to the current Transforming Cities Fund criteria, the funding should be spent and the scheme completed in in the financial year to 31st March 2024 (14.2).

NYC can no longer meet that condition, and the council is in negotiations with the DfT to change the ‘spend profiling’.

Visible Cycle Infrastructure in the Heart of Harrogate

Among the design elements noted is visible cycle infrastructure (5.1):

‘Also, introducing visible cycle infrastructure to the core A61 corridor strategically promotes cycle usage within the road user hierarchy to encourage modal switch.’

part of para 5.1 of the corporate director’s report

This is very encouraging indeed, and absolutely the right thinking. The importance of a ‘visible cycle amenity on the core A61 travel corridor in the heart of town’ is also stressed later in the report (12.4).

Other design matters noted as having changed since the scheme was first outlined include:

• the tree at One Arch being retained due to public demand
• removal of a water feature at Station Square on cost grounds
• better signalised crossings

The design of the Odeon roundabout is being reviewed. It was the most exciting element of the original plans, but has been diluted in later versions, so that cyclists have to go on a diversion up the roundabout arms in order to cross them.

A full Road Safety Audit of the roundabout design has been commissioned.

The TROs

TROs would not normally come before the Executive, but they are on this occasion due to the ‘significant public interest’ this scheme has generated.

The purposes of the TROs include:

• making Lower Station Parade one way southbound
• a section of Cheltenham Mount becomes one way
• bus lane on Lower Station Parade
• pedestrianisation of the top end of James Street
• parking and loading arrangements (a total of 40 parking spaces being removed)
• taxi bays (loss of 3 spaces, to be replaced on west side of Harrogate)
• change in location of disabled parking, but no change in overall number of spaces

When the TROs were advertised, there was no response from any of the 35 statutory consultees, but 41 public comments were made. These were largely the same criticisms as made in the consultations.

How Station Gateway Cycle Infrastructure Fits in with the Wider Network

At a meeting of Harrogate & Knaresborough Councillors on 5th May 2023, Executive Member for Transport Keane Duncan made certain commitments.

One of these was to demonstrate the wider strategic fit with other active travel interventions in Harrogate.

The follow-up in the Corporate Director’s report is to point to North Yorkshire’s Strategic Transport Planning map, which purports to show NYC’s active travel plans.

These plans exist on NYC’s website, but in reality most of them have been abandoned:

• Oatlands Drive (pink) abandoned after the first consultation in May 2021
• Otley Road (red) – Phase 2 abandoned after the third consultation showed majority support
• Beech Grove (light blue) modal filters ripped out and not replaced despite majority support for them
• Leeds Road (dark blue) is theoretically part of the Harrogate Transport Improvement Programme. The project began in 2019, and in that time NYC appear to have received one consultants’ report and commissioned another. They have done nothing
• Victoria Avenue (orange) – ATF4 bid for funding failed, and none of ATF2 money spent

It sticks in the craw that NYC should cancel these projects left, right and centre, then pretend they are still live when they need to demonstrate they have a plan for a coherent network.

Maybe there is some hope of a change of approach. The report says (12.3):

‘Officers and the Executive Member for Highways and Transportation met recently with officials from Active Travel England, and the potential for the TCF project to be used as a catalyst for future investment opportunities with grant funding bodies such as Active Travel England and to showcase the council’s commitment plus ability to successfully deliver projects of this type was recognised.’

para 12.3 of the corporate director’s report

Excepting Station Gateway, all we have seen so far is incompetence and lack of commitment to active travel. The ‘ability to successfully deliver projects’ is entirely in the future, if it exists at all.

Up to now, they have shown that they want the money that’s going, but they have been utterly incapable of doing anything with it.

But let’s give NYC the benefit of the doubt for the nth time, and assume that the sentiments are genuine.

Hub and Spokes

Station Gateway cycle infrastructure is described as a central active travel hub, from which spokes of further improvements can radiate (13.1).