North Yorkshire Council has published a short report about HTIP – the Harrogate Transport Improvement Programme.
It’s a report about a much longer HTIP document that the council received from consultants in July 2024. As it’s the second consultants’ report on HTIP, it’s called HTIP2.
Here are ten points about the new HTIP2 report, including a suggested way forward at point 10.
1) Congestion Survey
In 2019, the council held a Congestion Survey in which they asked residents about plans for a bypass, or so-called Relief Road. Respondents gave their views as to what should be done about congestion in Harrogate and Knaresborough.
The so-called Relief Road was roundly rejected, but 77% of 15,500 respondents asked for better walking and cycling facilities.
2) Six Years and Half a Million Pounds
In theory, HTIP was NYC’s response to the Congestion Survey. It was supposed to result in better active travel infrastructure.
In practice, in the six years since then, NYC has not provided better walking and cycling facilities.
The council has done what it always does: contract the problem out to consultants, who write long reports and charge big fees; the resulting reports are left on a shelf to gather dust.
NYC has spent £459,186 on two HTIP reports from consultants – nearly half a million pounds.
We are still waiting for on-the-ground improvements.
3) Warm Words about Sustainable Travel
In NYC’s report about HTIP2 there are warm words about sustainable travel. Para 2.3 talks about ‘transformational change’, and goes on to suggest that:
‘a multimodal package of linked measures is needed, which can offer people travelling a genuine choice of how to travel other than by car. This means providing a range of travel options which are, safe, convenient and affordable, and which are competitive in terms of journey times and cost to the user’.
Experience shows that warm words from the council are not followed by action to enable active travel.
NYC’s top, and arguably only, priority is “traffic flow”.
Every project that starts out as theoretically about sustainable travel ends up as a ‘moving motor vehicles’ scheme.
The focus of HTIP has already started to shift away from active travel. The proposals for cycling are underwhelming, and unlikely to result in modal shift.
4) West Harrogate Urban Expansion
NYC’s report says that part of the reason for the long delay to HTIP is the West Harrogate Urban Expansion.
The two projects overlap, geographically, and they have contradictory aims.
NYC’s Highways Development Control Officers have worked with West Harrogate developers to produce a ‘predict and provide’ Transport Strategy.
It is all about increasing capacity for motor vehicles whereas HTIP is, or was, about sustainable transport.
It’s not surprising that the council and the consultants have struggled to reconcile the aims of the two projects.
5) Moving Motor Vehicles
The consultants have suggested three packages of measures – Do Minimum (£1.8 million), Do Something (£8.9 million) and Do Maximum (£38.6 million).
The first item in all of them is MOVA traffic signals. They would increase capacity for motor vehicles at a junction in Pannal; this appears to be NYC’s top priority.
The traffic lights are combined with suggested changes to junctions, for example restricting turning movements at Leadhall Lane.
The aim is to get more motor vehicles along the A61 Leeds Road faster.
The result of increasing capacity for motor vehicles is usually more motor vehicle trips. York & North Yorkshire’s Routemap to Carbon Negative requires very significant reductions in motor vehicle trips.
Why is increasing capacity for motor vehicles part of NYC’s response to the Congestion Survey, in which local people asked for better walking and cycling facilities?
Important Omission: Rat Running at Leadhall Lane Junction
There is a significant problem of drivers using residential roads to avoid the A61 Leadhall Lane junction.
This includes Firs Crescent to the west and Almsford Avenue to the east.
If turns are restricted at the Leadhall Lane junction, this will exacerbate the problem.
The solution is modal filters on the residential roads to prevent rat-running.
6) Pedestrian Crossings at the Prince of Wales Roundabout
One modest but essential element of all three packages is pedestrian crossings at the Prince of Wales roundabout.
Currently, there are uncontrolled crossings (i.e. just suggested crossing points), where people are expected to cross two lanes of traffic at a time with no priority and no facilities.
At the West Park exit of the roundabout, drivers are accelerating, and it is extremely dangerous for people on foot.
7) St George’s Roundabout
The Do Something package includes a suggestion of four zebra crossings at St George’s roundabout (referred to as the Park Drive roundabout).
In the Do Maximum proposals, the roundabout becomes a signalised crossroads, and St George’s Road and South Drive cannot be accessed from the roundabout by motor vehicles.
Important Omission: Cycle Crossing of St George’s Roundabout
There is an existing and well-used cycle route between Park Drive and South Drive, but facilities for cycling at the roundabout are unacceptably poor.
There appears to be no acknowledgement of the cycle route in the HTIP2 report, and no attempt to make provision for cycling.
That needs to be remedied.
8) Bus Lanes and Park & Ride
The HTIP2 report includes suggested bus lanes.
In the Do Something package, there is just one short section of bus lane at Pannal.
In the Do Maximum package, the bus lane is wider, there is a second section between Fulwith Mill Lane and Leadhall Lane, and there’s a third section on West Park and Parliament Street.
The report notes that bus priority is important in connection with Park & Ride, to give buses a journey time advantage over private vehicles.
The bus lanes could be used by cyclists, but would be of limited benefit because:
- they are not continuous, so there would still be long stretches of riding in general traffic
- no bus lane is proposed up Almsford Bank, where cyclists would be going slowly and feel the most vulnerable
- the bus lanes are in one direction only
9) Proposed Cycle Routes
The two proposed cycle routes are shown on the Do Maximum map in blue and red.
I don’t want to dismiss these proposals altogether, but there are a lot of problems with them.
First, for utility cycling the best option would be dedicated, kerb-protected cycle tracks on Leeds Road itself.
They would be direct, and feel safer at all times of day and night, because they would be lit and there would be other people around.
Second, if HTIP is supposed to be about modal shift to walking and cycling, the priority should be the built-up area close to the town centre, because that is where the greatest potential is for mass cycling.
Nevertheless, we support the principle of a cycle route from Pannal to Harrogate.
One likely outcome of the HTIP process, based on our experience of NYC, is that the motor vehicle elements of HTIP are delivered quickly while the cycling elements are repeatedly delayed and diluted, and ultimately abandoned.
It’s easy to imagine the routes near Pannal being mud and gravel paths without lighting, while the sectors nearer Harrogate just involve signposting existing routes without making any meaningful improvements.
Blue Route
According to the notes to the map, the Pannal end of the Blue Route uses an existing bridleway.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the route shown on the map is on an existing bridleway.
It would be a new path across fields. Is the council really capable of building it to utility cycling standards, with a sealed surface and lighting?
Also, where it crosses Stone Rings Beck there would be a lot of work to do to make it cycle-friendly. There is a steep slope through woods to reach the existing bridge.
This feels more like a leisure cycling route than a serious attempt at mode shift.
After the Stone Rings Beck bridge the Blue Route crosses Leeds Road, but the more direct route to town would be through the Mallinson estate and the Cricket Ground to Beech Grove.
We have made suggestions for this route as the Cricket Ground Quietway.
The Blue Route goes via Fulwith Mill Lane, Hornbeam Park Avenue and Stray Rein.
NYC’s 2019 LCWIP said dedicated cycle tracks were needed on Hornbeam Park Avenue, but they have not been built. Regardless of HTIP, they should be provided.
The LCWIP also proposed a modal filter on Stray Rein, which should be put in place.
Red Route
The Red Route uses an existing footpath from Pannal to Almsford Bridge. It then takes a route by Crimple Beck to the Yorkshire Showground and heads via Oatlands Drive to town.
This would be a nice, primarily leisure, route.
It could be particularly useful if NCN Route 67 is diverted to use the Prospect Tunnel, and it would be beneficial in conjunction with the proposed Park & Ride site.
On the other hand, there are drawbacks. It is indirect.
Would NYC be able to build it with a sealed surface and lighting, to utility cycling standards? It seems unlikely. There would probably be objections to tarmac and lighting in the sensitive Crimple Beck area, but without them it would be a purely leisure/mountain bike route.
The council would have to do Oatlands Drive properly, with dedicated cycle infrastructure. NYC paid consultants to tell them how to do it in 2023, but the council then shelved the report.
It is very easy to imagine NYC simply saying ‘Oatlands Drive is an existing cycle route, use that’, without acknowledging how busy and hostile it is.
How likely is that telling people to use existing routes will lead to modal shift?
10) Harrogate Cycle Action Suggestions
After six years in which NYC has spent a lot of money on consultants and delivered no on-the-ground improvements, what is the way forward for HTIP?
I suggest that the council is not capable of delivering a £38.6 million mega-project. It probably wants to do the high-traffic elements of the packages and abandon the rest.
To fulfil the original aims of HTIP, which followed on from the Congestion Survey, the focus should be on improvements to walking and cycling facilities.
NYC should tackle smaller schemes that can be picked off relatively quickly, rather than a mega-project.
Here are our suggested projects, some on the Blue Route, some on the Red Route, and some which are simply in the A61 Leeds Road corridor.
- Pedestrian crossings on the Prince of Wales roundabout
- Cycle crossing of St George’s roundabout
- Modal filter on Firs Crescent/Leadhall Crescent
- Modal filter on Almsford Avenue
- Cycle tracks on Hornbeam Park Avenue
- Modal filter on Stray Rein
- Cycle tracks on Oatlands Drive
- Cricket Ground Quietway, with cycle facilties on Leadhall Drive, modal filter on Park Avenue, and branding and signing
- Modal filter on Beech Grove
- Cycle tracks on Victoria Avenue
And so the mystery of NYC’s approach to active travel continues. The Red and Blue cycle routes suggested are certainly odd and indirect. I imagine that they would be massively more expensive and controversial to build than a cycle path along Leeds Road. The topography of the ground around stone rings beck bridge is steep and would require some quite major engineering works not to mention vegetation removal. The removal of the overtaking lane on Almsford Bank would give more than enough space for high-quality bi-directional cycle path and improved footway. Even if this stopped at Firs Crescent it would be a start. It could also be made nicer by a speed limit reduction from 50mph to 40mph.