Councillors urge Tory-led council to “get its act together so people can get out of cars” after series of “failed and abandoned” cycling schemes

North Yorkshire Council has been told by Lib Dem and Green councillors to “step its game up” and “get its act together”, after a number of cycling schemes in Harrogate have seen delays and been abandoned, while many others have been implemented poorly. However, a councillor from the Conservative party, currently in the majority, has defended its actions and deemed that it hasn’t done a “bad job”.

Last month, the council’s senior transport planning officer Alexander Kay, who’s previously worked with cycling and walking charity Sustrans, unveiled a list of priority cycling schemes in Harrogate and Knaresborough.

However, funding bids have been rejected by the government for new cycle paths on Knaresborough Road and Victoria Avenue given the council's track record of delivering them, while the rest have met with deliberations and pushback.

The council has received sharp criticisms, with Harrogate District Cycle Action (HDCA) previously accusing them of “failing our children” and lacking in delivering any “significant cycling infrastructure for nine years”.

> Campaigners accuse council of “failing our children” after failing to deliver “significant cycling infrastructure for nine years”

Other controversial projects for the council have included the widely-criticised Otley Road cycle lane, scrapping a Low Traffic Neighbourhood on Beech Grove and deciding against creating a one-way system on Oatlands Drive.

The council's flagship active travel scheme, the £11.2m Harrogate Station Gateway, after being thrown into "jeopardy" following a legal challenge on the scheme, now has also been drastically scaled back following opposition from local businesses, with only a small section of Station Parade now set to include a cycle lane.

At a meeting of Harrogate and Knaresborough councillors, Liberal Democrat Councillor Matt Walker criticised the state of the cycle infrastructure in the area, saying: “To improve things you have to acknowledge there’s a problem. Active travel is absolutely terrible.

“Roads are gridlocked and full of potholes, buses are missed all the time between Harrogate and Knaresborough. We have to make improvements and the council needs to step its game up.

“It needs to get its act together so people can get out of cars and get around in a quick and environmentally-friendly way.”

Councillor Arnold Warneken from Greens added: “The frustration of people who want to cycle in Harrogate and Knaresborough isn’t being taken seriously.”

> Council scraps £500,000 Harrogate cycle lane expansions… even though majority support plans

In 2019, the council’s predecessor, North Yorkshire County Council had undertaken a massive survey which showed there was an appetite for improving walking and cycling infrastructure in the town so people are incentivised to leave their cars at home.

Otley Road cycle lane (via Twitter, Harrogate Cycle Action)

And then again in a survey last year, a majority of the respondents from the area were in favour of the active travel schemes in West Harrogate, including the Otley Road and Beech Grove schemes, however the council decided to jump through hoops and lump in those who said they had “no preference” together with those who were against it, skewing the responses against the schemes.

HDCA expressed their frustration and said that the council had “effectively abandoned active travel”. Similar feelings were also echoed by Lib Dem Councillor Philip Broadbank, who said: “I get frustrated with talks and plans and various things we spend time preparing [regarding cycling] yet year-in-year-out nothing happens.”

However, Councillor John Mann (Conservative – Oatlands and Pannal) defended the council and said it “hadn’t done a bad job” on active travel in his constituency. He said: “They’ve installed numerous cycle lanes, several 20mph zones, and school streets.

“The gateway scheme has not been without teething problems and it’s progressing. We shouldn’t be too hard on the highways team. The bigger picture is difficult on financing and funds. Costs of construction projects have gone up enormously and inflation is huge.”

> Campaigners blast “hugely disappointing” decision to abandon “failed” cycling schemes, four years on from hosting world championships

The failure to build meaningful cycling infrastructure in Harrogate comes after the town played host to the 2019 UCI road world championships, and even the Tour de France in 2014, with the former being somewhat unpopular with locals due to road closures — similar to last year’s ‘super’ world championships in Glasgow.

Questions have also been raised on the legacy of those two events and the impact on people who want to ride bikes daily for commuting or leisure in the area. In October 2022, we reported that one of the proposals made by the council in an active travel consultation was none other than an unsegregated, 1.3-metre-wide cycle lane situated against the flow of traffic, which the HDCA unceremoniously referred to as a “murder strip” and “dangerous”, with no benefits for active travel.

The group said: “Cycling south could well be worse than now, because the carriageway would effectively be narrowed by the cycle lane. You’d be stuck between the parked cars and the cycle lane, potentially with impatient drivers behind, harassing you or close-passing you.

“In our view, it is unprofessional of Area 6 to put forward a so-called active travel scheme that in fact has zero benefit for active travel. If they went ahead with Option 2, it would be because they wanted to look as though they were doing something, while actually doing nothing of value.”