Another £500,000 could be pumped into ‘oven-ready’ Harrogate Station Gateway

North Yorkshire Council is to bid for £500,000 to expand the ‘oven-ready’ Harrogate Station Gateway scheme.

The extra funding, which would take the cost of the scheme to £12.7 million, would be spent on improving traffic lights and junctions as well as enhancements to Station Square and the Queen Victoria monument.

According to a council report, this would reduce the 'economic disbenefits’ caused by congestion.

The council ‘de-scoped’ the controversial gateway project, which aims to encourage active travel around the train and bus stations, after it admitted breaching public law. But it has yet to reveal the scaled-down plans. 

It now intends to bid to York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority for the additional funds, which according to a decision notice on the council’s website would ‘bring forward a significant regeneration proposal in North Yorkshire, with major economic benefits for the local area’.

The report gives only brief details of how the funding would be spent. 

It says there would be additional signals/junction works on the A61 Ripon Road and the A61 King’s Road, which are described as the two most congested junctions in Harrogate. 

No further details on the enhancements to Station Square or the Victoria monument are provided.

The report says the measures would “provide additional benefit” to the “works on Station Parade, linking signals to improve network performance, encouraging active travel and reducing economic disbenefits from congestion”.

The combined authority received an initial £9 million in gainshare as part of the devolution deal from central government. About half of that sum has already been spent on the cost of the establishing the combined authority and the mayoral election on May 2.

A total of £3.5 to £4m of gainshare is available for regeneration projects, and the gateway application seeks to leverage these funds.

The council report says council officers “have taken a pragmatic approach to identifying ‘oven ready’ projects to form the North Yorkshire submission”.