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10
Dec
Harrogate Station Gateway funding delayed amid legal threat
West Yorkshire Combined Authority has delayed a decision on whether to release funding for the £14.6 million Harrogate Station Gateway scheme following a fresh legal challenge.
In November, the Court of Appeal granted permission for the Get Away campaign group to review a judge’s decision to dismiss their original legal challenge.
However, senior North Yorkshire councillors gave the go-ahead for the scheme to begin in the New Year despite the appeal going ahead.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority, which holds £11 million in government funding for the project, has now confirmed a decision to release the sum will not be made until it is satisfied that all conditions have been met to fund the project.
Station Parade is at the heart of the scheme.
At a meeting of the combined authority in Leeds on December 4, Simon Pope, director of capital programmes at West Yorkshire Combined Authority, recommended extending the scheme's completion date to August 2027.
Mr Pope said:
The combined authority’s funding contribution of £11 million which was approved in March 2024 remains unchanged.
This extension of time will allow North Yorkshire Council the opportunity to address matters required in order to discharge remaining conditions, including clarifying their intended approach in relation to the legal challenge and delivery of the scheme once in a position to do so.
Mr Pope added that any funding release will be delayed until WYCA is satisfied that North Yorkshire Council has met those conditions.
He said:
We are continuing to liaise with both North Yorkshire Council and York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority to better understand what their proposed intentions are in relation to how they going to respond to that legal challenge.
We will delay our decision in terms of discharging conditions until we satisfy ourselves that the promoter has the appropriate actions in train.
Steven Baines on the north section of Station Parade.
Steven Baines, spokesperson for the Get Away group, said he welcomed the decision to delay funding being released.
He added the move was an opportunity to “properly consider the serious legal and financial risks surrounding this scheme”.
Mr Baines said:
Given the Court of Appeal’s view that the challenge has real prospects of success, and the significant flaws in the business case, we are confident that a full and rigorous scrutiny process will make it clear that proceeding with the scheme at this stage cannot be justified.”
The decision to release funds will have real-world consequences for traders, livelihoods and the long-term vitality of Harrogate town centre. It is important that those involved in scrutinising how this development has played out consider all the legal and business case concerns that our lawyers have raised, and in doing so hold North Yorkshire Council to account.
Those governing the region and Harrogate, in particular, need to recognise there could be significant political and economic ramifications if, after the scrutiny process, agreement to proceed is given.
The move comes as North Yorkshire Council’s Conservative-run executive agreed to press ahead with the scheme on November 18.
At the time, senior councillors spoke of their frustration that “a few people who don’t like something” had been able to hold up the project.
The scheme will see the redevelopment of One Arch and Station Square, improved traffic signals, a bus lane, a southbound cycle lane on Station Parade, new paving for pedestrians and cycle parking at Harrogate Railway Station.
In a report before senior councillors, Alex Richards, Transforming Cities Fund programme manager at the council, said it was the council’s position that it was “entitled to rely on the High Court’s decision as a valid basis for moving forward”.
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