Letter: Heads in the sand on environmental crisis

I have just read the letters page in last week’s Advertiser “Will car policy be the end for businesses?” and am appalled at the headline and prominence given to the fact-free, inflammatory rubbish from Harrogate Independents.

Harrogate has had town centre parking for many, many years and ample free on-street parking only a short walk away and yet town centre retail business has consistently declined. This cannot be attributed to one-off events like UCI, even though that didn’t help, or traffic reduction schemes that don’t yet exist.

Do Harrogate Independents, BID and Chamber really have their heads so embedded in the sand that they can’t see reality at all any more? If their businesses fail they will only have themselves to blame for not looking at the alternatives that have been shown to reliably boost town centre trade elsewhere.

Time travelling to the past is not an available option. Beech Grove scheme in particular does not impact the town centre in any way at all - no parking reductions, no restriction of travel routes (to town).

To respond to the points made in the letter:

l No-one to my knowledge has ever suggested Harrogate become car free;

l What is the ‘loss of so much else’ they are talking about? Congestion, pollution….;

l Removing parking = removing visitors - nonsense! There is no shortage of visitor parking and this scheme isn’t reducing any anyway. Cost and availability of public transport is a much more significant factor along with the attractiveness of the town itself. Heavy traffic and fumes can hardly help;

l The streets being closed to cars are to stop traffic rat running through a residential area. Are they suggesting it is OK to pollute residential areas when it isn’t even a route to town? The scheme will not impact any schools as the rat run traffic to/from Cold Bath Road will all end up the same but by a different route (or hopefully reduced when the scheme settles down).

Traffic surveys have shown that about half of the traffic at peak time is local people making short local journeys that could very easily be walked or cycled by many if the environment was made safer. That is what this scheme is for;

l Arbitrary with no consultation - there has been too much consultation and not enough delivery (i.e. none so far!);

l Discriminatory - if the scheme is effective (as it should be) congestion should ultimately reduce and this will benefit individuals and commercial drivers who really need to use the roads rather than hurt them. No-one has ever suggested that car use will be completely banned or that people will be forced to walk or cycle when they are not able to;

l What will cause the end of Harrogate businesses is if they deny that shopping behaviours have changed. Making shopping streets pleasanter places to be with pleasanter ways to get there is the answer (as shown by many similar schemes elsewhere resulting in significant revenue growth for business there). They are cutting their own noses off with this attitude!

The reality is that we have an environmental crisis that means we have to drastically reduce our carbon generation or suffer irreversible climate changes that will cause far more disruption to life and business than a few cycle schemes. Car use needs to reduce substantially and the Local Plan allows new housing developments all around Harrogate with no sustainable travel links - all taking us in the wrong direction. Added to that we have a recent UCL study now attributing as many as one in five premature deaths in this country to air pollution. Is that supposed to be ok?

Carrying on as we were with our heads in the sand has a heavy price attached to it. Not many like change or find it easy, however we have pretty much run out of alternatives. It would be refreshing to hear what positive ideas Independents, BID and Chamber have to propose to address these issues rather than trying to put down the few initiatives we have.