Stray Views is a weekly column giving you the chance to have your say on issues affecting the Harrogate district. It is an opinion column and does not reflect the views of the Stray Ferret. Send your views to letters@thestrayferret.co.uk.

Scrap the Station Gateway

The Station Gateway project should be scrapped entirely in its present form even if this means losing out on the current funding. The current proposal is a highway engineer’s solution to a problem that simply does not focus on the important issues from an holistic point of view.

It is ‘pocket planning’ and requires an urban design-led concept which addresses all concerns, operating less on the imposed ‘we know best’ principle by the project leaders, and more on engagement with all sectors, especially those who care and whose livelihoods depend on Harrogate.

It needs to be a replacement vision with the real support of the businesses and people of our town. It needs to be one which above all addresses the problem of through traffic and the serious consideration of a park and ride service. Until this happens there is no successful considered alternative solution to Harrogate’s problems

A replacement funding stream is likely to materialise for a replacement vision and one which has the real support of the businesses and people of Harrogate. Once again, as with the Otley Road cycle route, the current proposal is another case of ‘putting the cart before the horse’. In other words, ‘grab the money while we can and then, oh, what shall we do with it?’ without having any masterplan in place.

If the current leadership is not capable of accepting this then I consider we, the citizens of Harrogate, should call for a vote of no confidence in the current project leadership. This could be arranged through an online petition.

Barry Adams, Harrogate

Read more:

• Harrogate Army Foundation College instructor demoted for punching teenage soldiers
• ‘Station Gateway consultation a whitewash’, claim Harrogate petitioners

Harrogate should have had a bypass

This multi-million pound moving of the deckchairs around the Titanic will only serve as a timely reminder of the dismal failure to deliver a bypass (ably aided and abetted by our member of parliament) and the absurd notion that 95% of Harrogate’s traffic is “local”. Never mind, the Skipton and Wetherby roads can cope, as ever.

Nick Hudson, The Saints, Harrogate

Do you have an opinion on the Harrogate district? Email us at letters@thestrayferret.co.uk. Please include your name and approximate location details. Limit your letters to 350 words. We reserve the right to edit letters.

Proposals for a £20 million Killinghall bypass have been criticised by environmental group Zero Carbon Harrogate.

North Yorkshire County Council has put forward plans to build a bypass, with a likely route from the Old Spring Well pub on the A59 to the roundabout in Ripley that goes to Pateley Bridge and Ripon.

It would be one of range of measures, including a park and ride bus scheme and enhanced cycling routes, to ease congestion in the Harrogate district.

But Rod Beardshall, transport lead at ZCH, told the Stray Ferret awareness of climate change had increased locally and building a major new road would “send out the wrong message”.

Mr Beardshall described the decision to refuse Harrogate Spring Water’s expansion plans into Rotary Wood as a “tipping point” for the town, where environmental concerns outweighed other factors.

Rod Beardshall, from Zero Carbon Harrogate

He called a bypass “yesterday’s solution” to tackling congestion:

“It would take years to build and as the climate situation moves on the idea would end up being more anachronistic.”

Killinghall has been bedevilled by traffic for decades and the problem has worsened recently as new housing developments have swelled the size of the village.

Read more:

• Killinghall bypass ‘could cost in excess of £20 million’

• Killinghall bypass proposed as part of plans to tackle congestion

Mr Beardshall highlighted a 2017 study by countryside charity CPRE that suggests new roads actually increase traffic rather than ease congestion.

He described roads “a very clumsy tool to address congestion” and called on the council to focus on better bus services and walking and cycling access for Killinghall. He even suggested charging motorists to drive through the village:

“If you build a road, it’s there forever.

“By thinking about a bypass you take the eye off the ball for more imaginative solutions.”

Last month, councillor Don Mackenzie, executive member for access at North Yorkshire County Council, said the bypass would ease congestion in the “fastest-growing village in the county”.

He said:

“We have a duty to respond to the many residents and local members who feel that they want to take some of this traffic out of their village.

“That includes 44-tonne lorries, which could not be replaced by a person walking or cycling. That is why we firmly believe that certainly further consideration of a bypass to take this traffic out of the village is needed.”