Active Travel England

Last updated 28th January 2025

1) Introduction

This is an assessment of the approach to cycle provision in Harrogate & Knaresborough by North Yorkshire Council (NYC).

(References to NYC include the former North Yorkshire County Council, replaced by NYC on 1st April 2023).

It is intended to provide local knowledge to Active Travel England (ATE) and York & North Yorkshire Combined Authority (YNYCA).

Provision for cycling in Harrogate & Knaresborough is poor, and progress is slow to non-existent. Worse, new housing developments are being built without making any worthwhile provision for active travel.

Over recent years there has been a lot of talk from NYC and many broken promises. Almost every scheme grinds to a halt without being delivered. Any that do progress end up so diluted that they do not represent any meaningful improvement.

The Pandemic and Beech Grove

During the pandemic local authorities were instructed to reallocate road space to walking and cycling. Modal filters were put in on Beech Grove, under an ETRO. This was the only scheme in the whole of North Yorkshire that reallocated road space, and the only LTN 1/20-compliant scheme in the county.

There was 66% support to make the Beech Grove scheme permanent, but NYC removed it and reinstated the road as a rat run for through traffic.

That was the first significant decision of new Executive Member for Transport Keane Duncan on active travel, and it represented a disastrous lack of political support.

NYC is failing on active travel.

Negative Attitude of NYC Towards Cycling

The main reasons the council systematically fails to deliver cycling infrastructure are:

lack of political will to see projects through
prioritisation of motor vehicles over active travel, from the council Executive down
negative attitude to cycling that permeates the entire local authority
lack of ability to manage projects to a timetable or deliver on-the-ground improvements at all

Historically, NYC has had a negative attitude to active travel and a near-exclusive focus on cars. That remains true today.

When there are officers who would like to improve active travel facilities, they are not supported by senior management, nor – as demonstrated by the Beech Grove decision – by the Council Executive. The best officers who want to get things done generally leave.

NYC is unwilling to, or incapable of, delivering active travel projects in a professional way to their own timetables. Deadlines are constantly put back 3 months at a time, with a cumulative result of years of delay and little or nothing achieved.

All the work done – meetings, reports, consultations, commissioning consultants to do designs – always stops short of delivering on-the-ground improvements.

In the sections that follow, we set out the issues. We have tried to be fair, but after 10 years of failure by the council it is hard to find any bright spots.

The best hope is outside intervention by ATE or YNYCA.