Letter: Traffic - A59 needs more investment

I once proposed that the A59 road from Skipton to York (via Harrogate) should be upgraded to a trunk road because it is a very important route between the conurbations. The A59 is well trunked from Skipton and beyond and also from York and beyond but not between Skipton and York.

As many of you will already know, there are no TRs directly to and from Harrogate, which means that Harrogate is not considered to be a place of urban importance sufficient to warrant legal TR definition.

As the biggest town in North Yorkshire and which is very important to Yorkshire as a whole, I have always considered this to be wrong as this means that all road schemes and/or improvements to the A59, leaves much of the financing to fall upon the county rather than the national road purse.

Granted, if such trunking was to be put in place, then responsibility for the road would be transferred from the NYCC to the Department of Transport and which would effectively fund such a “Western BP”. It would not however remove entirely NYCC’s influence on matters concerning the A59.

Please also allow me to say hello to all my lovely and long-standing friends in my birth town of Harrogate, who may be wondering what had happened to me. Well I moved to Oundle in Northamptonshire, for family reasons.

If anyone would like to contact me then my email address is [email protected].

Incidentally I am now half back in touch with Harrogate through this great weekly Harrogate Advertiser.

Jack Duckworth

Oundle, Northamptonshire