Conditional Support for Harrogate Station Gateway at Area Committee

There was conditional support for Harrogate Station Gateway at a meeting of Councillors of the Harrogate & Knaresborough Area Consituency Committee (ACC) this morning. This is a video of the meeting (which I understand is available for two weeks).

Councillor Peter Lacey (LibDems) put forward a motion supporting the Station Gateway project provided:

• concerns that individuals have raised are taken seriously and dealt with
• the ACC has a meaningful role in the project and
• there is rigorous monitoring of traffic flows and active travel before and after

How They Voted

Ten Councillors voted in favour. They were:

• Monika Slater (LD)
• Chris Aldred (LD)
• Peter Lacey (LD)
• Hannah Gostlow (LD)
• Philip Broadbank (LD)
• John Mann (C)
• Paul Haslam (C)
• Michael Harrison (C)
• Sam Gibbs (C)
• Robert Windass (C)

Three voted against:

• Matt Walker (LD)
• Mike Schofield (LD)
• Pat Marsh (LD)

During the meeting Green Councillor Arnold Warneken spoke in favour of the Gateway project, but he was not allowed to vote because only a small part of his constituency is in the H&K area.

Public Statements

The meeting began with public statements, including one from Harrogate District Cycle Action.

Zero Carbon Harrogate also spoke up for the project. Jemima Parker pointed out that Station Gateway would make Harrogate a forward-thinking, climate-crisis responsive place. It is a £10 million (plus) investment, and decarbonisation funds are not coming from anywhere else in the near future.

Several speakers were against it. Party Fever Ltd were worried about loading goods at their premises on Station Parade. Harrogate Civic Society was dismissive of cycle lanes and predicted gridlock in Harrogate.

Businessman William Woods called this ‘the wrong scheme at the wrong time’, but will any scheme at any time be right for opponents?

Judy d’Arcy Thompson described Station Gateway as ‘a portcullis slamming down on the main A road’.

Dame Francine Holroyd was convinced that cars and taxis are the future, and you can’t go out for a day shopping by bike. She said that if Station Parade was made one lane, traffic would back up all the way to Ripley.

Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce said they are broadly in favour of active travel, but not this scheme and not at this time. They want a cycle network in theory but not in practice.

Disappointing Behaviour in the Public Gallery

There were 39 people in the public gallery (really a room adjacent to the council chamber). Most of them had come to oppose the project.

They applauded the public speakers opposing the scheme, and heckled the speakers supporting it. It was a hostile and unpleasant atmosphere.

The most shameful moment came when there was a discussion about the pelican crossings of Station Parade. One member of the public said:

‘Run ’em down, that’ll save some time.’

member of the public at the area committee

Fortunately most of the public left before the end.

Officer Presentations

The officers present were Matthew Roberts, Tania Weston and Richard Binks. Among the points made by the officers were:

• this will be the first major investment in Harrogate in 30 years
• it is being done in line with a number of strategies including the local plan and the town centre masterplan
• Station Gateway responds to the wishes of respondents to the 2019 Congestion Survey
• 79,000 people live within 20 minutes cycle of Harrogate Station
• it is not about closing roads but it is about reallocating some road space
• traffic modelling shows a worst case scenario of 40s extra driving time in the am peak, and 53s in the pm peak. Most of the A61 is single lanes anyway, and it’s the junctions that are the problem not the stretches in between
• there have been no objections from any statutory consultees, including emergency services, the AA, and taxi and freight associations
• the BCR is 1.7
• Station Gateway would be the hub of an active travel wheel, with more spokes to come
• it would be awful if Harrogate did nothing

Councillor Contributions

Mike Schofield and Pat Marsh had made it fairly clear beforehand that they were not going to support the project.

Matt Walker was more of a disappointment and a shock. He described Station Gateway as ‘an £11 million vanity project’ and said it does nothing to address the problems of congestion and getting the town moving.

There was a notable positive contribution from Monika Slater, who said the pedestrianisation of James Street is a positive, and that Otley Road needs addressing.

Hannah Gostlow was also positive, urging a holistic approach and a cultural shift to active travel.

Worrying Comments from Chris Aldred

There were worrying comments from Chris Aldred:

‘There’s things I don’t like [about Station Gateway]. You’d expect me, wouldn’t you, to like the cycling, but I don’t actually. It is the road to nowhere as people have said, and although [a public speaker’s] scheme is not the only one we ought to be considering, that linkage from Oatlands down to the Greenway in the Asda car park does make perfect sense, and I think we really need to revisit that…I take Cllr Marsh’s point about children on a two-way [cycle track] being a disaster waiting to happen.’

cllr chris aldred

That’s wrong for the following reasons:

• unless you’re going to build a complete cycle network in one go, you have to start somewhere
• we already had the debate about where the cycle infrastructure should be in the first consultation (Feb/March 2021)
• Station Gateway cycle infrastructure is not the road to nowhere. It would get people from Victoria Avenue to the station and to Asda
• we don’t want the aim of the cycle infrastructure design to be to marginalise cycling, or get people out of the way
• we don’t want the cycle infrastructure designed by someone who is fundamentally opposed to the idea of cycle infrastructure, or hostile to the scheme as a whole
• bi-directional cycle tracks are not dangerous. They enable cycling
• bi-directional cycle tracks are approved by LTN 1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design, para 6.2.15

Whenever any cycle infrastructure is proposed, there is nothing more certain than that someone will describe it as “an accident waiting to happen”, whatever the design.

Next Step

The next step is an Executive meeting on 30th May 2023, when an officer report will be considered and a full business case can be presented in order to draw down the funding.