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07
Dec
Bus boss at ‘end of his tether’ over traffic on Harrogate’s Wetherby Road
The boss at Connexions Buses has urged North Yorkshire Council to take action to ease congestion around Harrogate’s Wetherby Road.
Craig Temple, managing director at the Tockwith firm, said the time has come to “sit down and work something out so we can get buses through traffic”.
Mr Temple’s frustration peaked after the X70 service last week took almost double the length of time it usually takes to get from Wetherby to Harrogate due to heavy traffic.
It took almost 40 minutes to get from the Kestrel pub to the junction with Hookstone Drive, which are just 1.6 miles apart, Mr Temple said.
In an email to the council, seen by the Stray Ferret, he said:
There was an event on at Yorkshire showground, where they were expecting 20,000 visitors – bear in mind Wetherby Road can't cope with the current level of traffic. Couple this with the Christmas market starting in Harrogate, and the associated mayhem this causes, and you've got the town at gridlock.
So, at this time, we've now got it taking 40 minutes to get from the Kestrel roundabout to Woodlands corner (about a third of the route length) on a bus service that is 25-30 minutes journey time.
This was only made worse when temporary traffic lights were last week installed on Wetherby Road, Mr Temple said.
But he added when services are delayed, the impact is felt by both the drivers and passengers. Mr Temple told the council:
To try and mitigate this, we added two buses into the cycle between schools, but all this did was mean more buses snarled up in traffic, and we were still unable to operate all services.
So, as well as carrying fewer people due to inability to operate services, we've got extra costs of operating, and extra cleaning costs as every bus arrived back into the depot late too.
We had stories of missed hospital appointments, missed meetings with friends, and other stories.
A traffic queue on Wetherby Road in 2022.
Mr Temple told the Stray Ferret the X70 service, which runs daily every half-hour, can take between 20 minutes and one-hour-and-20-minutes to complete dependant on traffic.
But Mr Temple feels the increasingly heavy traffic negates the firm’s chances at persuading people to ditch their cars and opt for public transport instead.
He told us:
For us to be able to run a reliable service - and to be able to persuade people to leave their cars at home and use a bus service that they can rely on - we need bus priority measures.
The Stray Ferret asked Mr Temple what he feels needs to change in order to ease congestion and improve services.
He feels prioritisation of public transport and investment into bus lanes on Wetherby Road are the answers.
Wetherby Road is wide enough for an inbound bus lane as far as the Woodlands lights from the Kestrel, and an outbound one as far as Woodlands from the Empress [roundabout]. This would mean we could run fast, efficient services – faster than a car can travel - and this would persuade people to leave cars at home. The more people that leave cars at home means less traffic on the road, meaning better conditions and a better environment for everyone.
Unfortunately, for years in Harrogate those with money and influence have not seen public transport and its use in traffic prevention. Now it's come to a head, and I'm not sure what will happen if action isn't taken pretty urgently.
‘Harrogate is an example of worst practice’
Mr Temple said his firm does not operate buses to generate a large profit – which he claims “does not exist in our industry” – but instead to provide a service to the local communities.
However, he feels this is only possible with assistance from the local authority.
He said:
When you look at other towns and cities such as York and Leeds locally – and Brighton as a smaller example – they have invested in facilities for many years, meaning that bus use is very high in those areas and cars are generally kept at bay and out of the centres.
Where these are examples of best practice, Harrogate is an example of worst practice.
Harrogate town centre is dying, and increased use of better public transport provisions would help to reverse this, Mr Temple also said.
The Stray Ferret put Mr Temple’s concerns to North Yorkshire Council. The authority's corporate director for environment, Karl Battersby, said:
Our highways team were required to carry out essential repairs to a footpath and gullies on Wetherby Road.
While we understand this will have caused inconvenience to road users, we always consider the impact such works will have before commencing and try, where possible, to keep disruption to a minimum.
Wetherby Road is a key strategic route into Harrogate and, as a result, sees a high volume of traffic at peak times. Recent public events in the town exacerbated this issue.
To address such issues, we impose restrictions for a number of weeks over the Christmas period on roads such as this, requiring that they are kept clear from planned road works.
However, if emergency work is required then where possible this can be carried out outside of peak times with manually controlled lights in place, as was necessary on this occasion.
Mr Battersby added the council is "working closely" with bus operators as part of its enhanced partnership plan. The authority will continue to have discussions about how it can support services within both the Harrogate district and the county as a whole, he also said.
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