The road to nowhere
With Bill Hoult, Lib Dem Leader at NYCC on the newly surfaced 'road to nowhere'
The Yorkshire Post had an interesting – and worrying – article under this title yesterday. In brief it referred to a farm track in Staveley that has just been resurfaced at a cost of £28,000.
It’s good to hear about road maintenance – because I think most people feel that our roads could do with a little more of it – but according to the YP the villagers in Staveley report that the road in question, Bedlam Lane, is a dead end used by hardly anyone and they cannot understand why it should have been chosen for resurfacing.
The YP alleges that one of the few users of Bedlam Lane is an NYCC Highways Officer who keeps horses in a field accessed by it. If this is indeed the case, clearly an enquiry must be held.
But the article also raises very serious questions about the process followed by North Yorkshire County Council in prioritising road maintenance. As a local councillor I always struggled to understand how they chose which pavements would be renewed. The ones that were identified by the officers as needing work often seemed to me to be in a better state than some of those that were refused.
Last week the County Council raised its council tax by an additional 0.44% (to 2.94%) to cover the cost of extra road maintenance made necessary by the effects of the harsh winter. Personally I think they were wrong to do so – you can bet that the 0.44% will not be taken off next year’s increase so council taxpayers of North Yorkshire will in fact pay for that maintenance every year to come as well as this year.
By the time I get my council tax bill I want to know from the leadership at County Hall who decides which roads are to be resurfaced and what criteria they use, what the elected members’ role is in the process, and what checks are in place to ensure that individual members of staff always make arrangements based on the need of the community, not their own convenience. Staveley’s elected County Councillor is the Deputy Leader – perhaps soon to be Leader – of the Council. Did he know about this? If not, should he have done?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Traffic arrangements – Killinghall & New Park
Last year the County Council’s Area Committee decided, against the advice of Highways Officers and the Police, to introduce a trial ban on heavy vehicles on the B6161 through Killinghall. This was a route which carried far too many heavy lorries and local residents and the primary school had good reason to be unhappy with the arrangements.
The problem was that the alternative route is also bad. The route is longer, the number of people inconvenienced greater and the congestion caused worse. A series of roadworks on Skipton Road added to the problems. The bridge over Oak Beck had to be reinforced leading to questions from residents about whether the road is sufficiently strong to take the impact of so many heavy trucks.
The trial period comes to an end on 30 December and the committee now has to decide whether to revert to the old arrangements, make permanent the ban on the B6161, or introduce another scheme altogether.
The Council’s Highways Officers recommendation is that the experiment has been unsuccessful and the previous arrangements should be reinstated. What will the Committee decide? The report is available on the County Council’s website.
The decision will be made at a meeting which takes place at 9.30 am on Thursday 17 September at the Pavillions. The item is one of the first on the agenda. Members of the public can apply to speak by contacting the Committee Clerk at the County Council. Three days notice is required.
Traffic on A59 Skipton Road at New Park
Killinghall bypass fades further into the distance
I hear there was an interesting debate and vote at the County Council’s Harrogate Area Committee this morning. The councillor for Boroughbridge had submitted a request to delete the route of the Northern Relief Road, which must have been in the county’s transport plans for two decades at least. The motion was opposed by representatives from Killinghall – a village blighted by main roads and heavy traffic, whose residents have been asking for a bypass for many years. Plans for this bypass link it to the Northern Relief Road so removing the Relief Road would spell the end for the bypass.
After the debate a vote was taken and by a very slim majority the committee decided to request that the route be deleted. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, the county councillor for Killinghall arrived at the meeting, having missed the discussion and the vote – by accident or design? Had she been there, would the vote have gone the other way?
An unusually quiet moment at the side of the A61 in Killinghall
Of course the Area Committee does not have the power to make this decision, but if the Council’s Executive decide to take their advice, it would certainly push any prospect of a bypass for Killinghall even further away and leave little prospect for the villagers of ever getting relief from the traffic that thunders through.
Meanwhile opposition is growing to the trial HGV ban that has been applied to the B6161 in Killinghall. Those living on the A61 Harrogate to Ripon road and near the New Park roundabout are now suffering the noise and vibration from the many heavy lorries that use this route. The surface of the A59 near the roundabout is being relaid for the third time in a few months and the bridge over the Oak Beck has had to be reinforced after some of the key stones fell out.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Holes in the roads
I’m pleased to see that the hole in the road at Station Bridge was quickly patched. But complaints about the state of the roads around the town continue to flood in.
North Park Road
In North Park Road there are bright new lines, but holes which get bigger every day.
And even some of the areas which were patched shortly before Christmas are already beginning to break up again, like this example on East Parade.
East Parade
The roads in Harrogate have never been worse than this. It’s uncomfortable in a car, but a nightmare on two wheels. Not only do cyclists and motorcyclists suffer great jolts from these uneven surfaces, but they are put a risk either from being tipped off the bike or as a result of swerving to avoid the ruts.
A combination of budget cuts and problems arising from the transfer of responsibility for highways from Harrogate to Northallerton is clearly the reason for this disrepair.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The state of our roads
Is it just me or are our roads in a really terrible state? I spotted this pothole at the junction of Station Bridge and Station Parade today and it’s one of thousands around the area. The Council has been filling in some of the holes recently but of course patched areas deteriorate very quickly, leaving an ever greater mess afterwards.
This is really important for cyclists and motorcyclists in particular because the presence of these potholes can result in very serious accidents for them. And in this instance a cable seems to be exposed.
Since North Yorkshire County Council made a huge cut in the budget for road repairs and reconstruction in the Harrogate Agency area a couple of years ago, the condition of our roads and pavements has got very much worse. The Director of Environmental Services at the time justified the cut on the grounds that the roads in Harrogate and Knaresborough had been costing far more to repair, mile by mile than those in the rest of the county. The fact that they are far more heavily used and therefore wear out far more quickly did not seem to enter into his calculation.
This may not bode well for the future – the County Council has given the Borough Council notice that the Agency is to be terminated from 2011 and I hear that responsibility for our roads is in fact likely to revert to Northallerton sooner than that – possibly even towards the end of this year.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )
Claire Kelley's Diary 