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07
Oct
Unswept road puts walkers in danger, claims Knaresborough resident
A road in Knaresborough has been left unswept for 10 months, putting pedestrians in danger, according to a local resident, who says North Yorkshire Council is "too big to care".
Philip Allott, a former mayor of the town, has been asking the council to clear the gutters on Abbey Road since December 2025, but despite further emails to the council in January, February, April and June, he says the work still has not been done.
He his December email, Mr Allott told the council that the slippery pathway put walkers "at risk of injury or worse", and in his April email, he wrote:
Abbey Road is very popular with walkers and cars need to drive onto the debris, which can cause low-speed wheel-spins on a wet day, to try and safely pass the walkers.
Unswept leaf litter on the edges of Abbey Road.
The Stray Ferret contacted North Yorkshire Council to ask what was causing the delay. A spokesperson told us:
Initial investigations suggested some drainage issues could have been linked to construction traffic on a nearby development. A request for road sweeping was made earlier this year, but high demand across the county resulted in delays.
Mr Allott had also asked the council to clear the gullies on Grimbald Bridge, which had been blocked, causing localised flooding in wet weather.
One of the partially blocked drains on Grimbald Bridge.
The council said this week that the work on the grade two listed structure had been done:
The six gullies at Grimbald Bridge were cleaned in October last year and again in April after concerns surrounding drainage. The gullies are included in the council’s routine maintenance programme and are due to receive their scheduled annual clean later this month (October), meaning they would have been cleansed three times within a 12-month period.
The area is also inspected monthly and an additional ad-hoc cleanse is always arranged in response to any concerns raised.
But Mr Allott claimed that although the work was carried out, it was not effective. He said:
Whilst the gullies at the start of Grimbald Bridge were cleaned after water flowed onto the carriageway adjoining the bridge, the debris from the sheltered accommodation building works on Wetherby Road has remained on the road gutters over the bridge and no road sweeping to clean it has taken place between December 2025 and now.
The gully debris is now growing grass, and for a very busy road it is in a poor state of cleansing, posing a risk to bike riders like me and other road-users. How long does it take to arrange a road sweeper? 10 months!
Grass growing out of builder's debris on Grimbald Bridge in Knaresborough.
He added that he thought North Yorkshire Council was "a major disappointment" and "too big to care".
North Yorkshire Council said that both gully cleansing and road sweeping would continue through the winter, with additional work ordered where inspections identify a need.
The spokesperson added:
While regular maintenance helps reduce the risk, there are occasions when rainfall is so intense that drainage systems simply cannot cope with the volume of water.
There are also issues caused by debris, mud, fallen leaves or water flowing onto the highway during periods of extreme weather to bear in mind.
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