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15
Dec
Council reveals potential Harrogate park and ride sites, but warns of cost
A list of potential sites for a park and ride in Harrogate have been revealed as part of a council transport study.
North Yorkshire Council officials have drawn up five locations where a park and ride could be created.
It comes as the authority has published its Harrogate Transport Improvement Package, which aims to cut congestion and encourage use of sustainable travel in the town.
The study goes into detail on potential park and ride sites, cycle routes and junction and traffic light upgrades.
According to the report, the sites were consider viable for an “initial design stage” and are located in the south, north and east of Harrogate.
They include:
- Southern - Buttersyke Bar, Pannal
- Southern - East of Leeds Rd, Pannal
- Northern - Ripley (northern site)
- Eastern - Close to the Kestrel PH
- Great Yorkshire Showground
The report includes a number of measures to improve sustainable travel, which range from “do minimum” at a £1.8 million cost and “do maximum” at a £38.6 million.
The "do maximum" option, which includes a park and ride site.
Louise Neal, transport planning team leader who wrote the report, said that in order for a park and ride facility to be brought forward it would need to be included in a “do maximum” option due to its high costs.
He said:
Park and ride is included only in the do maximum option, due to the high scheme costs of delivering each site.
But, Ms Neale warned that there is currently no funding identified for any of the measures and that "full public and stakeholder engagement" would need to be carried out for any of the schemes to be taken forward.
The report, which is due to go before Cllr Malcolm Taylor, executive councillor for highways next week, also recommends that the study be referred to York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority as the local transport authority.
Ms Neale said:
There is currently no funding identified for any of the options within the HTIP report.
It is suggested that as the Mayoral Combined Authority are now the Local Transport Authority for North Yorkshire and York, that future development work on this would be subject to this scheme being prioritised for further work as part of their pipeline of major schemes and funded through Local Transport Grant or similar funding streams.
Endless debate
The move comes as a Harrogate park and ride has been the subject of endless debate and feasibility studies over the last 10 years.
In 2021, more than 100 locations were examined and the two most promising were revealed as land near Pannal Golf Club and the Buttersyke Bar roundabout south of the village.
Nothing materialised and the idea appeared to be shelved.
David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, told the Stray Ferret in September that park and ride in Harrogate was something that has been discussed at the combined authority, though not in great detail.
However, Mr Skaith said creating a park and ride was not as straightforward as putting on more buses.
He said:
Is park and ride an option in Harrogate? We need to explore that. The challenge when you build a park and ride is that you just put buses into the same traffic.
It’s about how do we mitigate the traffic in general? A park and ride could be one of those options, but it’s about understanding where it would be based.
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