Fatal Flaws in the Cycling Strategy for West Harrogate Developments
North Yorkshire Council (NYC) has released its Transport Strategy for West Harrogate. There are fatal flaws in the cycling elements of the Strategy.
The new developments amount to a very significant urban expansion of Harrogate, with several thousand new houses. Under current plans, cycling will not be an option for most people, and large volumes of motor vehicle traffic will be generated.
The Transport Strategy
The Transport Strategy was written by Ashley Helme Associates (AHA) and finished in April 2024. NYC do not appear to have published it, but HAPARA have provided a link to download it – Part 1 and Part 2.
It is intended to be a coordinated plan for the transport infrastructure needed for the new developments, which belong to different housing developers.
AHA claim (para 1.7.1) that it addresses some of the points raised by stakeholders who attended a drop-in session in September 2023 – but the Transport Strategy was never sent to those stakeholders.
The Strategy recites (para 1.6.2) some of the active travel funding relevant to West Harrogate that NYC has had (but which the council has so far failed to use to produce any meaningful infrastructure):
- NPIF funding in 2017 for Phases 1 & 2 of Otley Road Cycleway – Phase 1 built to poor standards in 2021, and Phase 2 abandoned
- TCF Station Gateway in 2019 – most active travel elements abandoned, and the scheme now focused on motor vehicles; no infrastructure built to date
- HTIP – supposedly a sustainable transport project for Leeds Road which has been rumbling on since 2019 without producing any results
Junctions
The Transport Strategy contains a long list of junctions which are to be the focus of ‘mitigation’ work.
99% of that work is increasing capacity for motor vehicles at the junctions; in most cases, no thought has been given to cycle-proofing the junctions.
“Decide and Provide”
The Transport Strategy (para 8.5.3) makes the astonishing claim that it represents a ‘decide and provide’ approach.
‘Following discussions with NYC, a Decide & Provide approach has been taken to the residential trip generation rates adopted in the Transport Strategy. TRICS published a Guidance Note in February 2021 on the practical implementation of the Decide & Provide approach. Traditionally a Predict & Provide approach has been taken by relying on historical trip rate data to predict the trip rates of future developments’.
Decide and provide involves:
- prioritising active and sustainable travel by making high quality provision that enables modal shift, and
- only increasing capacity for motor vehicles as a last resort.
The Transport Strategy does not include high-quality cycling provision; it is very largely focused on increasing capacity for motor vehicles at junctions.
Therefore the claim that the Transport Strategy reflects ‘decide and provide’ is detached from reality.
What AHA actually mean by decide and provide is that their trip generation forecasts are for lower volumes of motor vehicles than under predict and provide.
They are failing to take the difficult first of providing high-quality alternatives to driving, but doing the easy easy second step of reducing their traffic forecasts.
Cycling Strategy
The Walking and Cycling Strategy is in Chapter 3 of the Transport Strategy.
Warm Words
There are warm words (para 3.2) about active travel – of course there are.
‘The ability to be able to walk and cycle within [the West Harrogate developements] and further afield to essential services and work is key in order to minimise traffic.
The principal aims of the walk and cycle strategy…are to promote walking and cycling through the creation of direct, safe, comfortable and attractive pedestrian and cycle routes within these sites, and connections to the local highway network.
It is particularly important that good walking and cycle connections are provided to the local facilities (shops, schools etc) in the vicinity of the West Harrogate developments.
Pedestrian and cycle routes will be designed in accordance with best practice, including the principles set out in LTN 1/20, where achievable’.
The most important cycle link of all is to Harrogate town centre, but there the transport proposals are a complete failure (see Otley Road Cycleway below).
AHA have estimated walking and cycling trip generation rates from the developments, but cycling rates will be entirely dependent on whether there are safe and convenient cycling facilities or not.
Otley Road Cycleway
The Strategy explains (3.5.1) how an isolated fragment of Otley Road Cycleway, Phase 1, was built. Phase 2 was cancelled (3.5.2):
‘The original Phase 2 proposals along Otley Road have now been cancelled and sustainable improvement schemes are now proposed along the side roads to the north and south of Otley Road, details of which will be made available by NYC in due course’.
This is the nonsense ‘ribs but no spine’ strategy which fails to get people on bikes where they need to go.
Phase 3, west of Phase 1, is still due to go ahead (3.5.3). Apparently it is a priority, possibly to be built in this financial year.
Parts of Phase 3 of the cycleway will be within development sites. It is not entirely clear whether Phase 3 is shared use or separate walking and cycling paths. Para 3.6.3 is encouraging when it talks of:
‘a new pedestrian and segregated cycle track on the north side of Otley Road along the frontage of H49, which will link to the emerging Phase 3 Otley Road Cycle Route’.
Paths within Development Sites
There are to be (largely shared use) walking and cycling paths within development sites (3.6.1) – which is fine as far as it goes, but not of much use if they don’t link up to a coherent network outside the sites.
The sites will have multiple vehicle entrances. A true decide and provide strategy would include a single vehicle entrance/exit, but more numerous and convenient entrances for non-motorised modes.
Lady Lane and Pannal Ash Road
Fragments of cycle infrastructure are proposed on roads in the West Harrogate area, but nothing that amounts to a coherent, high-quality network.
Lady Lane (3.7.4) is to get a bit of shared use pavement to join up to the existing (awful quality) shared use pavement on Beckwith Head Road.
There are to be zebra crossings of the arms of the roundabout at the top of Pannal Ash Road.
An isolated fragment of cycle track is also proposed for a short stretch of Pannal Ash Road.
If you were cycling south on Pannal Ash Road, uphill, you could join the cycle track at the junction with Richmond Avenue, then swap to the other ‘wrong’ side of the road at the entrance to Rossett School/Sports Centre.
The cycle track would then give up and abandon you on the wrong side of the road a few metres further on.
There might be a very limited number of Rossett pupils arriving from Richmond Avenue who would benefit from the few metres of cycle track to the school entrance.
Other than that, it’s yet another example of NYC prioritising motor vehicles, and putting token, unusable cycle facilities – not to meet people’s needs, but because it’s easy and they can tick a box.
The Strategy claims (3.8.3):
‘There is potential to extend the Pannal Ash Road cycle scheme to Otley Road and, whilst this does not form part of the West Harrogate infrastructure package, it is something that NYC are considering implementing at some future point’.
NYC is a council that can’t build cycling facilities to which it is theoretically committed, and which are funded.
There is absolutely no hope for projects which it might do “at some future point”. Check back around 2050 and see if anything has happened.
Prince of Wales Roundabout
NYC has been promising for years that crossings of the arms of the Prince of Wales roundabout will be included in the West Harrogate infrastructure works, but there is no reference to that in the Transport Strategy, which is very disappointing.
It looks very much as though getting as many vehicles through the roundabout as fast as possible is the priority. If you’re on foot, you have to take your chances crossing two lanes of traffic at a time.
Trinity Road
NYC is proposing to expand capacity for motor vehicles by turning Trinity Road into an officially-designated rat run.
Consultants SLR (‘Making Sustainability Happen’) suggest putting traffic lights at either end of Trinity Road, on Leeds Road and Otley Road, and directing traffic to cut the corner rather than travelling via the Prince of Wales roundabout.
The Transport Strategy (6.4.15.3) says that 40% of drivers travelling from Otley Road to Leeds Road would take Trinity Road instead of the Prince of Wales roundabout, and 60% of drivers going from Leeds Road to Otley Road would travel via Trinity Road.
This would turn Trinity Road, a pleasant park/residential street, into part of the main road network. That is wrong in principle – especially doing so without consulting local residents.
The other problematic aspect of this scheme is that Trinity Road is needed as a link between future cycle facilities – between Leeds Road and Otley Road.
In a Harrogate Cycle Network Zone 3 plan, Harrogate Cycle Action suggest a modal filter on Trinity Road to prevent drivers cutting the corner here.
Trinity Road would then be a quiet street suitable for cycling.
St George’s Roundabout
There is a plan to widen Leeds Road on the approach to St George’s Roundabout, but no plan to improve the woeful cycling facilities at this roundabout.
This is on an existing cycle route, for people travelling between Park Drive or St George’s Road and South Drive, and back. The roundabout should be cycle-proofed.
Wetherby Road
NYC plan to take Stray land to widen Wetherby Road at the Woodlands junction, see plans above and below.
This is not a decide and provide approach, it is the opposite.
NYC are proposing to allocate even more space to motor vehicles at this junction. The space is required to build cycle infrastructure on Wetherby Road, as set out in our cycle network plan, Zone 8.
A decide and provide approach would prioritise adding cycle facilities at the junction, rather than reallocating space to motor vehicles so as to make the future provision of cycle infrastructure impossible.
If not now, when?