Cycle Facilities at Harrogate’s New Tesco

A new Tesco has opened on the A59 Skipton Road in Harrogate.

There’s an Aldi in Oak Beck Park opposite Tesco, and a vast area of new housing development a short distance to the west of the two supermarkets.

Has the council provided a cycle link from the housing to the nearest local shops?

No.

I have looked at the cycle infrastructure that is there, and the missing link that means that connectivity between the housing and the shops is severed.

The two main problems are:

• the low quality of the new infrastructure near Tesco, which fails to meet national standards and
• the lack of joined-up cycle facilities between the housing and the shops

National cycle infrastructure design guidance tells councils not to use shared use in urban areas, but that is what North Yorkshire has done near Tesco.

It also tells councils not to make cycle routes give way at every side road, but again North Yorkshire Council has done just that.

But the bigger problem is the lack of a joined-up route, which means that anyone in the new housing development who wants to cycle to their local shops would have to brave the hostile A59.

Most people just won’t do that.

With all the highly-qualified and well-paid people at the council and the developers, it seems extraordinary that time and again they fail to make sensible arrangements for cycling. But in North Yorkshire they do fail, every time.

Who at the council is supposed to be putting in place a sensible plan?

The cycle parking at Tesco is ok – but most people can’t get to it.