The Harrogate District Cycle Action raised a question at the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Committee meeting on 12 September 2024 – that’s the forum of the County Councillors in this locality.
We are publishing the question and the response, as due to a new council policy, they no longer read out and publicly respond to questions where the individual asking the question has not attended.
Dear Councillor and Officers.
We have read the report presented to you today.
However we ask you to look at the detail bearing in mind that significant funding has been won by North Yorkshire and in those ten years all that has been built is a small section of a poorly implemented cycle path. Consultants have consumed vast amounts of money, reports written but nothing has been delivered.
Work to repair and improve the Rossett path has been completed this month and we thank officers for this.
Look carefully at what is written in the report. Eight projects have no timeline, just to be confirmed. Eight projects have Quarters offered. These are unspecific with no actual timelines or milestones.
The Tiger crossing mentioned for Oatlands Drive is an incorrect term, it should be a parallel crossing.
The simple scheme of a raised table at Bilton Lane is still waiting for the Road Safety Audit report eight months after it was requested. This crossing of the Greenway is an important addition to the network. This very small scheme has now been going on since early 2023.
This is how long it takes to get work done. The Killinghall build out is a similar story. We are told consultations are taking place, letters being sent out but time and again at our meetings these things have not happened. The timeline of this project has been repeatedly delayed.
If any Road Safety Audits are required for any of the schemes in this document North Yorkshire have already made it clear that they do not have the staff to do this work.
There are a number of TRO’s required for the 20 mph zones. Are you confident that the timelines will be achieved bearing in mind that the TRO for work around the school street scheme on Beechwood Grove was advertised in October 2023 and is still to be completed.
There is a resource and processes issue within the department which needs to be addressed if any of the schemes have any chance of being delivered.
So I repeat look carefully at this report. Do you have confidence that you will at the next meeting see a raft of schemes that will have been delivered?
Does the team have the necessary resources and can they follow all the processes required that will see these schemes delivered?
HDCA.
Response from Melisa Burnham (Area Manager, Highways and Transportation):
Mrs Margolis,
The report has been written with as much detail as is available to the authors at the time of writing.
Almost all of the improvements require Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs). There are numerous factors which contribute to how long it can take to seal an order, which make it extremely difficult to predict exactly how long this will take to implement, hence the estimated timescales provided not being more detailed than what has already been presented.
Firstly, plans and documentation must be prepared by consultants. Then, NYC must review the plans and documents and prepare draft orders +IBM this can be time consuming as our legal team does consistently face resource issues. Then, we must undertake informal and formal consultation for all individual orders, for a period of three weeks each, with time to review responses in between. It is not possible to predict whether objections will be raised +IBM if yes, then a report must be taken to our Executive Members to decide whether or not the TRO will be implemented. These meetings are held on a monthly basis, and reports must be prepared at least four weeks before these meetings.
The TRO+IBk-s must be sealed before works can commence on site. Other factors that can affect timescales for delivery can be resource across a number of NYC teams, including our contractors who must balance the delivery of the Capital Programme against that of improvement schemes. Due to the uncertainty of timescales for TRO processes, it is a difficult task to ensure contractors have resource available exactly when we need it, since workloads are planned many months in advance.
Officers will used best endeavours to hit the targets provided within the report and keep you updated in regular meetings using the format provided in this months report Appendices. Projects have been moved forward substantially since the appointment of the Improvement Project Delivery Manager, even so the management and delivery of eighteen distinct projects each with their own complexities and issues is a challenge.
The crossing on Oatlands being referred to as a Tiger crossing is not incorrect, this is a less formal term for a parallel crossing but the two titles can be and are used interchangeably.
Regarding the Bilton Lane Crossing needed a Road Safety Audit, which has contributed to the delay in delivery. This has now been concluded, officers are preparing a designer response to the audit. Subject to contractor availability and the impact of design amendments as a result of the audit Officers are still working towards delivery this financial year.
