The lack of any considered response or ongoing information from Cllr Malcolm Taylor or indeed  the corporate communications team at North Yorkshire Council to my recent "opinion" article on the Station Gateway published in September on the Stray Ferret website is concerning for local democracy.

In a subsequent email to him his brief response said: "The article is an opinion piece.  North Yorkshire Council will engage with all communities across the county via our corporate communications team." But again, no other response has been forthcoming. 

As a resident of Harrogate, I find Cllr Taylor's approach and lack of a considered response arrogant and not what is expected from a senior councillor or indeed the executive member for highways and transportation. Even his predecessor Cllr Keane Duncan at least had the courtesy to always send a full response. It appears North Yorkshire Council are going into lockdown on gateway.

The purpose of my correspondence to the Stray Ferret was to question the requirement by the council to fell a perfectly healthy mature species of small leaf lime tree adjacent to the pedestrian crossing to the railway station. I described this action as corporate vandalism. The impact of its loss would be immediate.

Overall, I still totally fail to understand how the gateway will deliver a scheme which helps to lift the central area of Harrogate and provide easier access to the station.

This has prompted me as to put forward my own design thoughts. I say this as a person who during my professional career as an architect worked closely with experienced urban designers. These thoughts are discussed broadly in a report I co-authored last year. At the time I forwarded a copy to Cllr Taylor but once again, no response. The report set out an agenda for consideration and examined Harrogate under the key headings of its strengths, weaknesses and above all its opportunities.  

Opportunities for Harrogate

I am still not aware of any final design proposals published by North Yorkshire Council even though we were promised these during Cllr Duncan's reign. The poor quality visuals are old hat, consistently churned out over the last few years without updating and do not appear to show a segregated bus lane on Station Parade. 

I've always claimed the project is a highway engineer's solution, two-dimensional in concept, pocket planning and therefore has no sense of spatial quality.

Opportunities for Harrogate do need to be explored and discussed. For example, as part of any design concept I strongly believe we should consider the following:

• Improving Cycling Infrastructure: Revisit the East Parade cycle route proposal to create a safer, more ambitious linked network that avoids congested roads like Station Parade.  North Yorkshire Highways have always dismissed this suggestion without giving substantive evidence or proof to the contrary.
  
• Creating a Strong Sense of Arrival at the Station: Consider a well-designed, glazed canopy at the railway station to enhance the sense of arrival and civic pride. This would negate the need to fell the small leaf lime tree adjacent to the pedestrian crossing as proposed by North Yorkshire Highways.
  
• Improving Station Square Public Realm: This area does seriously need de-cluttering but without the loss of any of the deciduous small leaf lime trees as intended by North Yorkshire Council. Reference should be made to the historic street layouts and the 1950s layout of this area. Station Square up to James Street would benefit from repaving in a quality material appropriate to a Conservation Area. Consideration should also be given to extending the paving materials along with softer kerb installations across and into the top end of James Street to visually extend and give the illusion of a pedestrian link across the top end of an important retail street. Likewise across Station Parade into the station car park to give the illusion of a much larger space to visually link both sides of Station Parade at this point.
  

In addition to the above agenda, the following latecomers to the project need to be highlighted:

• The construction period of two years, or is it now three years, following the latest information published by the Stray Ferret, will cause utter chaos with traffic movement in and through Harrogate and no doubt impact on businesses. You only have to witness the problems and delays generated by the infrastructure projects taking place along Ripon Road and most other areas of town.  
  
• The announcement from highways for a car park set to become a construction compound for three years appears to be a little bit late in the day. This should have been considered at an early stage of project planning.    
  
• It is worth highlighting the last cost increase for the project was reported by North Yorkshire Highways in July 2025.  Since then construction costs have generally increased in the region of 4.5% but the reported cost of the project has stood still. Does this mean the project has been "de-scoped" using North Yorkshire’s phraseology to maintain costs at £14.6 million? Or has the quality of the finishes been reduced as previously hinted by the council for the same reason? Perhaps this is why North Yorkshire appear to be in lockdown when it comes to communications for fear of the truth being exposed.  
  

What revelation next? Do North Yorkshire Highways really know what it is doing?  

More people and businesses in Harrogate oppose the gateway project than support it even though North Yorkshire will massage the facts to claim otherwise. Is there any guarantee it will be a success?

Despite all the recent High Court rulings it is time for Harrogate to make the biggest noise it can to demonstrate to the council that we will not sit back and be dictated to or walked over by them all for the sake of their vanity project.  

Time is short. We do care about the appearance and success of our town, so Harrogate, let's see some real action.

Barry Adams, Harrogate