This letter was sent in response to our latest article on the Harrogate Station Gateway scheme, which you can read here.

I'm not surprised that when the Stray Ferret emailed Cllr Malcolm Taylor, North Yorkshire Council's highways chief, on July 31 and August 12 for an update on when and where work will begin on the Harrogate Station Gateway they did not get a response on either occasion.  

The Stray Ferret recently published an opinion article I wrote questioning a number of pertinent design issues on this vanity project.

Bearing in mind that we still do not know what North Yorkshire Council’s final proposals will look like — even though we were promised this information well over 12 months ago — I still totally fail to understand how the gateway project will deliver an 'exemplary' scheme. 

In particular I questioned the requirement by the council to fell a mature, perfectly healthy species of small leaf lime tree adjacent to the pedestrian crossing to the railway station.

I followed up publication of the article by trying to contact Cllr Malcolm Taylor for a response but he just stonewalled me. 

All he would say is that "North Yorkshire Council will engage with all communities across the county via our corporate communications team”. Just look at the response they sent to the Stray Ferret.

In my opinion, they are simply not interested engaging any more with the people and businesses of Harrogate. I thought councillors were elected to serve us. Where is local democracy? Can we trust them?

Barry Adams, Harrogate