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.
30
Sept
Government rates North Yorkshire Council among worst in country for cycling schemes
The government has rated North Yorkshire Council one out of four for its ability to deliver active travel schemes.
Active Travel England, which is part of the Department for Transport, publishes annual assessments of local authorities’ capability to deliver projects that make it easier for more people to walk, wheel and cycle.
The lowest level awarded is zero and the highest is four.
North Yorkshire Council applied to be upgraded from level one to level two but Active Travel England rejected this in Local Authority Active Travel Capability Ratings 2024, which was published this month.
Level one ratings are awarded to councils that demonstrate ‘some local leadership and support with developing plans and isolated interventions’.
Level two ratings indicate ‘visible local leadership and support, with emerging network’.
Of 80 local authorities, none were rated zero, 42 were level one, 32 were level two, six were level three and none were level four.
The report does not say why Active Travel England rejected North Yorkshire Council’s bid for an upgrade. The Stray Ferret has submitted a freedom of information to the Department for Transport for details on this.
Danny Williams, chief executive of Active Travel England, wrote in the report:
The capability ratings are about shining a light on our delivery partners and about helping those local authorities that want to deliver safe, high-quality walking, wheeling and cycling interventions to do so, in a way that brings their communities with them.
Throughout last year, we supported all authorities with our training offer and funded them to develop the skills and capability needed to deliver good active travel interventions.
'Heroically over-optimistic'
The council’s self-assessment to Active Travel England, which can be viewed here, reveals it allocated £811,385 of its £102.4 million transport budget to active travel.
It adds that the council employs the full-time equivalent of 612 staff on transport, of which 31 work on active travel.
The council cited the Otley Road cycle route in Harrogate and the proposed introduction of a 20mph speed limit on streets near schools in west Harrogate as evidence for its requested upgrade to level two.
It claimed it is ‘beginning to deliver an integrated network and the majority of new schemes are part of that network’.
The campaign group Harrogate District Cycle Action questioned whether the council’s self-assessment was fact-based or ‘heroically over-optimistic’ in an online article.
The group said Conservative council leader Carl Les and his Tory colleague Cllr Keane Duncan, the council’s executive member for access, were the key players. It said:
Cllr Duncan has not put forward any new active travel schemes since his appointment in May 2022, nor delivery of any on-the-ground improvements. He has been hostile to us at the cycle campaign.
Cllr Les (left) and Cllr Duncan
As for Cllr Les, it said he “made the decision in August 2023 to give in to the opponents of Harrogate Station Gateway who launched a judicial review of the scheme”.
Referring to the council overall, it added:
It has not built any modern cycling infrastructure to LTN 1/20 standards, it removed its only Low Traffic Neighbourhood (Beech Grove), it allows pavement parking, it has no measurable targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport, and there are no cargo bike delivery schemes.
North Yorkshire is a high-carbon, high-traffic county, where motor vehicles are top of the de facto transport hierarchy.
3