Town-centre residents launch petition to demand Station Gateway details

Last updated Apr 22, 2024

Station Parade, the heart of the controversial Station Gateway scheme.

A resident of Harrogate town centre has launched a petition demanding to be informed about how work on the £12.1 million Station Gateway redevelopment will affect her and her neighbours.

As we reported last week, Rachael Inchboard previously submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request to North Yorkshire Council to ask for the development plans to be made available urgently so that people could have their say.

But although the council said the information would be published “as soon as it is practical to do so”, it revealed that would likely be in the summer, rather than the spring, as was previously stated.

Now, Ms Inchboard hopes the petition, which she launched on behalf of Granville Road Residents’ Group, will help speed the process up. So far, it has been signed by 137 people; her target is at least 200 signatures. She told the Stray Ferret:

“Residents like me who live in the town centre don’t know what’s going on. We’ve asked for the details but been refused.

“We’d like to know specifically what the plans are so that we know whether or not we want to challenge them.”

She fears the plan details could eventually be released so late that there will be no time to raise concerns or have them acted upon. She said:

“A couple of years ago, just one local resident received a letter notifying her of one of the in-person consultations on the day it was happening, and the other residents found out about it from her. So we’re very aware that some of these consultations are very rushed.

“There are a lot of issues that aren’t clear, and we don’t want that to happen again.”

Granville Road Residents’ Group, which submitted an earlier petition in 2021 opposing the Gateway scheme, campaigns on behalf of people living on streets including Granville Road, Back Granville Road, Mount Parade, Back Cheltenham Mount and Strawberry Dale Avenue.

Ms Inchboard said the issue was about more than just the Station Gateway – it was about accountability. She said:

“People here are paying a lot of money in council tax, yet someone who’s just had a big pay-rise [Richard Flinton, chief executive of North Yorkshire Council] can’t even get back to us about what’s going to happen just feet away from our front doors. There’s no transparency, and that has to change.”