No to Harrogate relief road

20th August 2019

The people of Harrogate and Knaresborough have given a resounding 'no' to North Yorkshire County Council ('NYCC') plans to build a so-called Harrogate relief road through Bilton Fields and close to the Nidd Gorge. 78% of the 15,500 respondents were against it.

Any reasonable council would accept the definitive answer given by respondents, but NYCC only says it won't take the so-called relief road any further 'at this time'.

The NYCC report on the results of the congestion study suggests more road-building plans - a Killinghall bypass, and a possible south-western bypass from the B6162 Otley Road to the A61 Leeds Road. County councillors will discuss the report on Thursday 29th August 2019.

Measures which attracted support include:

improved cycling and walking infrastructure (77%)
park & ride (71%)
smarter travel choices & behaviour change (75%)
bus lanes and priority (59%)

Harrogate Congestion Survey - walking & cycling

One possible next step is preparation of 'bid-ready' cycling and walking routes so funding opportunities won't be missed.

Other interesting points arising from the report include:

the Otley Road cycle path is due to be built 'after the UCI World Road Cycle Championships in September. Exact programme dates are still to be determined.' (Para. 2.7)
on efforts to increase active travel to schools and businesses via Open Harrogate, the report says that take up has been mixed. '...[S]ustainable travel officers report that whilst the need for interventions and an expressed desire to shift towards more sustainable and active travel is recognised by the general public, getting them to take action on their behaviours and reduce single occupancy car use is extremely difficult and will take a lot of further time and investment.' {Para 2.16)
NYCC's Communications team paid for advertising on Twitter and Facebook, in the Harrogate Advertiser, and online with the Harrogate Informer during the congestion study (paras 3.11-3.13)
the 'free text' section of the online questionnaire resulted in 27.9% of comments being 'predominantly critical of the relief road proposal', and 7.8% of comments supporting 'fully segregated cycle lanes and the need for joined-up infrastructure' (para 5.7)
the report complains that Nidd Gorge Community Action misrepresented the facts (paras 6.3 to 6.6) on east-west connectivity. In fact, NYCC's information tried to present the road as for local traffic, when it was clear from documents including the WSP report that east-west connectivity was a major driver for the proposal