This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT
    • Politics
    • Transport
    • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Business
    • Crime
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Education
    • Harrogate
    • Ripon
    • Knaresborough
    • Boroughbridge
    • Pateley Bridge
    • Masham
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Latest Jobs

Interested in advertising with us?

Advertise with us

  • News & Features
  • Your Area
  • What's On
  • Offers
  • Latest Jobs
  • Politics
  • Transport
  • Lifestyle
  • Community
  • Business
  • Crime
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Education
Advertise with us
Subscribe
  • Home
  • Latest News

We want to hear from you

Tell us your opinions and views on what we cover

Contact us
Connect with us
  • About us
  • Advertise your job
  • Correction and complaints
Download on App StoreDownload on Google Play Store
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Statement
  • Comments Participation T&Cs
Trust In Journalism

Copyright © 2020 The Stray Ferret Ltd, All Rights Reserved

Site by Show + Tell

Thank you for your interest in this story

To continue reading this article, subscribe to the Stray Ferret for as little as £1 a week

    Already a subscriber? Log in here.

    13

    Sept 2021

    Last Updated: 13/09/2021
    Transport
    Transport

    Council to debate petition to lift Harrogate's Beech Grove closure

    by Calvin Robinson

    | 13 Sept, 2021
    Comment

    0

    The 770-signature petition calls for experimental measures to encourage cycling and walking on Beech Grove to be scrapped.

    beech-grove-harrogate

    A 770-signature petition calling for Harrogate’s first low traffic neighbourhood to be removed is to be debated by councillors this week.

    Members of North Yorkshire County Council's Harrogate and Knaresborough area constituency committee will meet on Thursday to discuss the traffic restrictions.

    They were introduced in February and have proved popular with pedestrians and cyclists but caused complaints from some locals.

    The trial restrictions have seen planters placed on Beech Grove to stop through traffic and create quieter streets where residents feel safer walking and cycling.

    It has made getting around the area by car more difficult and that is the idea behind it – to decrease car use.

    David Pickering is one of the 770 residents who have signed the petition against the restrictions, which he said have only made traffic worse on surrounding streets.

    He said: 

    “I continue to be surprised by the enthusiasm of North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council to spend taxpayers’ money on projects which are universally unpopular with local residents.
    “It is all very well for public sector employees to sit around examining ways of maintaining budgets and tinkering with local roads to divert traffic when it has no material impact whatsoever on their personal lives.
    “But on the ground it will concentrate traffic down certain roads.
    “Anyone with a modicum of common sense would be able to work out that it will just concentrate traffic on Cold Bath Road and Queens Road.
    “I just don’t see the point of the initiative.”


    The low traffic neighbourhood was introduced by highways authority North Yorkshire County Council and received the strong backing of Harrogate Borough Council.



    Read more:



    • ‘It’s working well’: Campaigner counts cyclists using Harrogate’s Beech Grove

    • Around three cyclists an hour using Harrogate’s new low traffic neighbourhood

    • Beech Grove closure: County council receives 600-signature petition





    Last month, the county council ended a public consultation on the restrictions ahead of a decision on whether to extend the 18-month trial, make the road changes permanent or scrap them altogether.

    Barriers on Victoria Road


    Last month the county council also announced plans to introduce a one-way traffic filter on nearby Victoria Road in another trial to improve road safety and encourage cycling and walking.

    These restrictions will be trialled from this month and involve erecting a barrier to prevent vehicles from leaving to join Otley Road.

    Mr Pickering said many residents were also against these plans, which he fears will make traffic “unbearable” on nearby Queens Road and Cold Bath Road.

    The county council was contacted for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.