Active Travel Update at Area Committee Meeting
Highways officers presented an active travel update to a meeting of the Harrogate & Knaresborough Area Committee of North Yorkshire County Council today.
Despite the latest report, and consultations and the engagement of consultants, NYCC is still not delivering on-the-ground active travel improvements.
Today’s meeting showed that too many local Councillors approve of NYCC officers’ strategy of, to borrow a phrase from Sir Humphrey Appleby, ‘masterly inactivity’.
ATF4
An Active Travel Fund 4 (ATF4) bid has been made for a scheme on Victoria Avenue. The Victoria Avenue scheme was first funded in 2020 under ATF2 but no work has started. Recently NYCC said that the funding was not sufficient to go ahead, which is why a bid has been made for top-up funds.
A decision by Active Travel England on ATF4 is expected tomorrow.
Most of the Councillors present at the Area Committee meeting appeared to support the Victoria Avenue scheme.
Oatlands Study
A scheme on Oatlands Drive was also funded by ATF2 in 2020, but at the first sign of pushback the council dropped it.
A consultation about active travel in the Oatlands area was held in Autumn 2022, and NYCC says it will come up with some design proposals by next month (April 2023).
HTIP
The Harrogate Transport Improvement Package was work that started in 2019 in response to the Congestion Survey, but which has not resulted in any on-the-ground improvements.
HTIP was originally due to look at sustainable transport improvements, but there are signs that NYCC now intends to increase capacity for cars as much as possible instead.
Councillor John Mann spoke of 27,000 drivers a day using Leeds Road, with long queues and congestion.
Increasing capacity for motor vehicles will not solve that problem, even if it’s possible to increase capacity. It’s not clear that Cllr Mann sees it that way.
NYCC say they expect to have reports back from consultants in May 2023 – but there again, they say a lot of things about timetables but they rarely or never meet their own deadlines.
Otley Road and Beech Grove
The Otley Road and Beech Grove schemes were recently cancelled in spite of majority support for going ahead.
The line officers are taking seems to be that since there were only about 200 responses to the Autumn 2022 consultation, that’s not enough to justify going ahead. That is bizarre.
It looks as though they wanted to abandon these schemes for other reasons, possibly insufficient funds, and they are trying to use the consultation as an excuse.
Cllr Chris Aldred
The most worthwhile contribution in relation to Otley Road, Beech Grove, and active travel more widely, was from Cllr Chris Aldred.
He said he was disappointed with the active travel update.
He pointed out that in 2019, 15,500 people responded to the Congestion Survey, with 77% of them asking for better walking and cycling infrastructure.
It is now 2023 and hardly anything has happened.
The key to this, said Cllr Aldred, is how these schemes link to each other.
The Otley Road scheme was in large part a junction-widening scheme for cars, leaving pedestrians and cyclists crammed into a small amount of space. A lot of money has gone into provision for cars, not cycling.
Otley Road probably wasn’t the best scheme to start with; Victoria Avenue is a good scheme. NYCC should have started with Victoria Avenue, which links into Station Gateway, and links to Beech Grove if we’d been brave enough to continue with that.
Beech Grove was aborted after a consultation with just 200 responses. It was actually working – people were cycling and walking more – and then Cllr Keane Duncan decided we’re not doing it.
It is 5 years since the funding of Otley Road in 2017, and what have we got for it? An aborted little scheme up Otley Road which nobody uses.
‘We need to get our act together and we need to be doing things, and we need to be faithful to those 15,500 people who responded to that survey.’
‘We’ve got money, and hopefully we’ll have some more money tomorrow, and I would like to see that Victoria Avenue scheme happening within the next 12 months.’
‘I also would like to see an active travel team [being set up].’
Cllr Sam Gibbs
Cllr Gibbs was against the Otley Road and Beech Grove schemes, so he is pleased that NYCC officers have dumped them.
Cllr John Mann
Cllr Mann thinks it’s good that no on-the-ground active travel improvements have happened, because it shows that the council is listening. There have been lots of consultations instead of action.
Oatlands Road Safety Campaign Statement
Oatlands Road Safety Campaign also made a statement at the meeting.
They are parents in the Oatlands area of Harrogate who have launched a petition for 20mph limits. This follows injuries to children who were hit by drivers, when they were on pavements on Beechwood Grove and Yew Tree Lane.
Cllr John Mann, who represents Pannal, supports the petition.
NYCC highways officer Melisa Burnham said that she and her colleagues are ‘engaging proactively with the group’.
The Oatlands petition complements the neighbouring Pannal Ash Safe Streets Zone petition.
Cllr Aldred asked Melisa Burnham if there has been any progress in the Pannal Ash area since that petition came before the Area Committee 6 months ago.
Her response was ‘we’re looking into it’ – which is a no.