Councillor John Mann has said that delays to traffic calming on Green Lane and Pannal Ash Road is having an effect on road safety.
Councillor John Mann said:
As a campaigner for better and safer roads in the west and south west of Harrogate, I welcome the news that Green Lane and Pannal Ash Road will be resurfaced this autumn. However I’m disappointed that traffic calming measures for these two roads will be delayed with no fixed date for their introduction.
I understand that the proposed traffic calming measures for these two roads need to be considered as part and parcel of the overall package being proposed by the Council Highways team to mitigate the effect of traffic congestion caused by the extensive house-building programme in the west of Harrogate. But surely any consideration of the thousands of houses which are planned to be built in this area would lead to the immediate conclusion that traffic calming measures need to be introduced on Green Lane and Pannal Ash Road as soon as possible rather than being delayed while further considerations and consultations take place.
4000 new homes are in the process of being developed on new housing sites at Windmill Farm, Bluecoat Park, Lady Lane, Whinney Lane and other nearby sites. Whilst, this is good news for people seeking to move to Harrogate and those looking to step onto the housing ladder, it is also causing fear and anxiety amongst the residents of west and south west Harrogate as they contemplate the complete lack of an adequate road infrastructure to cope with all the additional traffic and congestion.
All these new houses basically mean two more cars on the local roads per house. These roads are lanes – very narrow and winding. Many have no footpaths. Traffic experts calculate that these thousands of new homes are expected to generate up to 2500 vehicle movements per hour in addition to which will be traffic from other new housing developments at Penny Pot Lane and Skipton Road.
There is a high risk that all these additional vehicle movements will cause a reduction in road safety unless urgent steps are taken to install traffic calming on roads such as Green Lane and Pannal Ash Road. I therefore strongly urge North Yorkshire Council Executive to expedite measures for traffic calming in these two streets, together with the proposed 20 mph limit for Green Lane, as soon as possible. This work needs to be done urgently and a date needs to be set please.
Response from North Yorkshire Council
