North Yorkshire County Council officials are still confident that a park and ride in Harrogate can be funded despite cuts to government funding.
A park and ride scheme is among the measures proposed by the county council as part of a series of transport initiatives to reduce traffic and ease congestion.
Two locations in Pannal on the 36 bus route were identified as possible sites.
On Tuesday, county council officials warned that it was “unlikely” that the authority would receive all of its £116 million bus improvement bid from government – which would help to fund the scheme.
But Cllr Don Mackenzie, executive county councillor for highways, told a Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Constituency Committee that he was still confident that there would be enough funding for a park and ride scheme.
He said:
“The various interventions following the Harrogate Congestion Study and the Harrogate Transport Improvement Programme are every much prioritised in our bus services improvement plan.
“Even if we get reduced funding, which is likely, I am confident that there will be money there for the various interventions that we want to make in Harrogate including a pilot for park and ride.”
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The news comes as the county council bid for £116 million worth of funding to improve bus services in North Yorkshire.
The county council unveiled its Bus Service Improvement Plan in October with proposals for more bus lanes, cash support for existing and new services and a simpler ticketing system.
But, the government wrote to councils in January highlighting how its £3 billion budget to “transform” bus services had more than halved to £1.4 billion.
Hope that electric buses bid will be successful
Separately, the county council has also bid for £8 million of government cash to make all of Harrogate Bus Company’s fleet electric.
If successful, the company’s parent firm Transdev would contribute £11.5 million towards the costs of buying 39 zero-emission buses.
Cllr Mackenzie told the area constituency committee that he remained confident of being successful in receiving the funding.
He said:
“I remain fairly confident about that [the bid]. We ought to hear something about that by the end of this month, that was originally the deadline given to us.”
