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24
Sept
Harrogate roads are ‘absolute gridlock', says mayor
The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire has described Harrogate’s roads as “absolute gridlock”.
David Skaith, Labour mayor for the region, said it took a total of one hour and 10 minutes to travel two miles from St Mary’s Walk near Cold Bath Road to take his mother to Harrogate District Hospital a few weeks ago.
Mr Skaith, who grew up in Harrogate, told a meeting of York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority’s overview and scrutiny committee today:
It took us over an hour to get from St Mary’s Walk to Harrogate hospital a few weeks ago when she broke her arm. It took an hour and 15 minutes to drive two miles.
I don’t know what is going on with Harrogate, but in the last 10 to 15 years it is absolute gridlock.
His comments come at a time when motorists have expressed frustration over roadworks and congestion in Harrogate, such as on Leeds Road and Knaresborough Road.
Diversions and delays caused by multiple roadworks across the town have driven many drivers to despair.
Harrogate District Hospital.
This month, the Stray Ferret revealed that the town was spared six months of more misery on the roads following a communications cock-up between North Yorkshire Council and Yorkshire Water.
In an email to the utility company, the council’s head of network strategy said Harrogate was “already massively congested” due to “competing demands from utilities and others”.
The sentiment is shared among Stray Ferret readers, who have previously written to us to say that roadworks were 'strangling' the area and making trips to the shop and school-runs "almost impossible".
In one letter, Andrew Hart said:
These endless roadworks and now roadworks on freshly completed roadworks are strangling the whole area. Shopping, school runs, buses and businesses have almost become impossible.
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