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02
Oct
Mayor approves extra £500,000 to support Harrogate Station Gateway
York and North Yorkshire mayor David Skaith has approved £500,000 to support the delivery of the Harrogate Station Gateway project.
The money will be spent upgrading two bottleneck junctions on the A61 to improve traffic flow on the approach to Station Parade, where the main gateway changes will take place.
Traffic lights at the King's Road and Ripon Road junctions and the King's Road and Cheltenham Parade junction will be improved.
At a meeting of the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority board today, which the Labour mayor chairs, the funding was given the go-ahead.
According to a report before the board, the changes will “maximise the benefits” of the controversial gateway scheme, which is finally set to be built next year.
Mr Skaith also gave the go-ahead to a contribution towards the Selby Station Gateway scheme.
Presenting the proposals to the combine authority board, Liz Philpot, head of delivery at the combined authority, said:
What I would like to highlight is that both of those projects are part of the Transforming Cities Fund delivery in those two major towns across North Yorkshire.
North Yorkshire Council bid to the combined authority for the extra funding to help “improve traffic flow across the town”.
Cllr Carl Les, Conservative leader of North Yorkshire Council and member of the combined authority board, told today’s meeting that the council would not be able to deliver the upgrades without the funding.
He said:
The two projects that I am very keen that we’re supporting from North Yorkshire, we would either not be doing it because we could not afford to do it or we would be coming back and doing it after the initial part of the project had been done which would not be the most sensible approach to it.
I’m very happy to support it [the funding] because of additionality and speed reasons.
After the meeting, Cllr Les added:
The intelligent traffic lights in Harrogate will help improve traffic flow through the town centre as vehicles move past the convention centre and on to the railway station. And the Selby scheme will see the station area transformed which we hope will bring economic benefits to the town and strengthen its role as a transport hub.
We submitted a list of our key projects to the combined authority and am pleased to see they are being endorsed by the mayor.
The £12.1 million Station Gateway plans now include a redeveloped One Arch and Station Square, better traffic signals, a bus lane, a southbound cycle lane on Station Parade, new paving for pedestrians and cycling parking at Harrogate Station.
But those hoping to see a more ambitious gateway scheme for pedestrians and cyclists have been left disappointed.
Plans to part-pedestrianise James Street and reduce Station Parade to one lane were abandoned when the council admitted it breached public law in the face of a legal challenge.
This meant it had to go back to the drawing board to ensure the legal threat subsided and the project could move forward, albeit on a smaller scale.
But despite the changes the scheme has continued to court controversy.
A resident-led petition calling for it to be scrapped has now garnered more than 1,000 signatures since it was set up in August.
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