One of Ripon’s busiest thoroughfares will be closed daily between 7am and 5pm for six days from Friday, to enable North Yorkshire County Council to carry out repairs and resurfacing works.
Minster Road, which runs past Ripon Cathedral, along with St Mary’s Gate, are part of an inner-city route that many road users take if travelling to Cathedral Primary School, Aldi, Marks & Spencer food store, and homes on Residence Lane and those accessed off Priest Lane.
Signs, including ones for a diversion route that takes in Allhallowgate, Stonebridgegate, Magdalen’s Road, Rotary Way and the Ripon bypass have been put in place by NYCC.
With the St Mary’s Gate and Minster Road in their present condition, some motorists have been making their own diversionary route to avoid the potholes.

Stewart Readman, used a steel tape measure to emphasise the size of potholes on St Mary’s Gate.
Among them is Ripon resident Stewart Readman, who contacted the Stray Ferret in April to express concern about the state of the city’s roads.
At that time, he said:
“St Mary’s Gate and Minster Road are particularly hazardous and both my daughter and I had to have springs replaced on our cars because of damage caused by the potholes.
“Since then, it’s a route that we have avoided.”
St Mary’s Gate is currently a patchwork of temporarily filled-in potholes.
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With the road repairs and resurfacing due to start in four days, Mr Readman said this morning:
“I will be keeping a close eye on this work, but there are still many other roads in Ripon that also need to be attended to.”

The repair and resurfacing works will be carried out from the junction of Priest Lane with Allhallowgate and St Mary’s Gate and on Minster Road.
A resident, who lives on St Mary’s Gate, added:
“We’ve waited a long time for this pothole problem to be sorted out and I just hope that they make a good job of resurfacing the road
“Hopefully it will be up to the same standard as the resurfacing work on Cathedral Car Park, where the contractors did a great job.”
Read more:
- Could a pothole machine be the answer to Ripon’s rocky roads?
- Smooth operators earn praise for Ripon car park resurfacing work