North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) have won a modest amount of money from the Capability & Ambition Fund.
The central purpose of the fund is to train up an active travel workforce of engineers and planners at councils across England. That workforce will then be able to deliver active travel projects to consistently high standards.
Unfortunately, NYCC are not using their £220,780 allocation to develop in-house expertise. A grant acceptance report sets out how the funds will be used. The breakdown is as follows.
1) Brayton to Selby Route – Design Work (£143,165)
£143,165 is to be used to develop a detailed design for a route from Brayton to Selby. That money will almost certainly be paid to consultants.
By way of context, in conjunction with Harrogate’s Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan consultants drew up detailed designs for four routes. Since then, NYCC have made no attempt to build the routes.
Will the Brayton to Selby route ever be built? Given NYCC’s track record, probably not.
2) Intelligent Sensors (£22,615)
NYCC will buy three intelligent sensors to collect data on walking, wheeling and cycling. One will be placed on the Brayton to Selby corridor, and the others will inform an ATF4 bid.
3) Behaviour Change Initiatives (£55,000)
Soft behaviour change measures to be funded include travel planning, cycle training, and communications and marketing.
If NYCC was building high-quality active travel routes, then it would be worth marketing them. As it is, they are making no progress on physical infrastructure, so it is pointless marketing non-existent routes.
More Details
For more details of the Capability & Ambition Fund allocation, see this Hedgehog Cycling post.