Harrogate residents' fears after alleged lorry incident in area of intensive housing developments

Harrogate's first-ever Climate Action Festival pledges action, not talk on cutting carbon emissions

The alleged incident involving a heavy truck and a small car on a narrow residential street at the junction of Wreaks Road and Kingsley Road has alarmed members of Kingsley Ward Action Group.

Action group member Gary Tremble said: "This is a residential area and it is being treated like a building site with absolutely no regard for the residents.

"The car was in a collision while stationary with a truck which was on the wrong side of the road.

"To make matters worse, no rear license plate appears appears to be visible on the rear of the truck in the photograph I have.

"Trucks have to be stopped from using our road as part of a construction site.

"It's dangerous. Is it going to take a death to get something done?"

Residents in the tightly packed narrow part of town between Kingsley Road and Bogs Lane near Knaresborough Road have been protesting about the situation for 30 months.

Kingsley Ward Action Group have fought a running battle against developers from early 2019, usually without success.

They say the lengthy list of new housing in the same part of town by different developers in what was once greenfield space is ill-judged and ill thought-out in regard to the overall consequences for the entire area near Harrogate High School and Bilton fields leading to Nidd Gorge.

Kingsley Ward Action Group claims local residents have had to cope with hundreds of truck movements a day along with the noise, pollution, dust and damage to the existing road system.

On top of that, some of their streets have been dug up more than once to lay cables, water pipes and other infrastructure by utility companies to cate for the new developments with all the noise and mess that that entails.

As well as more than 500 new houses, the end result, they add, will be hundreds of more cars feeding into the existing traffic congestion on nearby Knaresborough Road.

While criticised by Kingsley Ward Action Group, both Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council says the Local Plan and the planning system are being followed in new housing developments.

Issues such as traffic problems and transport links are assessed an, where, there are problems, they do try to intervene within correct procedure.

In fact, Harrogate Borough Council recently attempt to block one set of plans in the area for 149 new homes at Kingsley Farm.

But, after Richborough Estates’ victory at the appeal stage, they decided to relent to avoid the financial costs of a further appeal for the council and local tax payers and the risk of defeat.

Kingsley Ward Action Group has passed on details of the alleged car and lorry incident to North Yorkshire County Councils Highways & Transportation department.

The Stray to host major tribute to NHS as Harrogate International Festivals links up with award-winning artist

A message from the Editor

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.