Column: Five projects in Active Travel Fund bid

North Yorkshire County Council’s Tranche 2 bid to the Department For Transport’s Emergency Active Travel Fund was submitted on August 7.

It includes five cycling and walking schemes, three of which are located in and around Harrogate, at: Oatlands Drive – installation of fully segregated cycle lanes on each side, a tiger crossing (yellow and black) with additional tiger crossings at nearby locations on Knaresborough Road and Wetherby Road.

Victoria Avenue – Princes Street to Station Parade, the creation of segregated cycling infrastructure with two metres wide lanes and bike storage facilities.

A59 between Knaresborough and Maple Close – fully segregated cycle lanes and improved crossing facilities at both ends of the route for pedestrians, to provide better links to the existing cycling infrastructure and to Knaresborough.

While the combined value of the five schemes exceeded the £1.06m sum allocated to the county council for its bid, it was felt that all five were worthy of inclusion, and that there had been instances in Tranche 1 of awards being made in excess of the original sums allocated. We expect to receive a response to our bid within the next few days.

Otley Road cycle path – Stray land exchange

I welcome the start of the 12-week public consultation by Harrogate Borough Council on the proposed exchange of 557 square metres of land to make up for that which is required for the construction of the Otley Road cycle path, and on the amendment of byelaws to include cycling on the cycle path.

An experimental cycle lane will shortly be installed in nearby Beech Grove, as part of the Tranche 1 schemes submitted to the Emergency Active Travel Fund. In preparation for that, local householders have been informed that patching and resurfacing work will be carried out at the beginning of September.

Submission of shovel-ready schemes to the Y&NY LEP

There was good news for the county council earlier this month when the York and North Yorkshire LEP approved the allocation of funding to various schemes in the county, including repairs to the A19 south of Selby (£6m), additional investment in digital infrastructure (£3m), and upgrades to three business parks, including the site infrastructure of Harrogate West on Burley Bank Road for the development of two employment units.

Surface dressing programme

North Yorkshire County Council has carried out a full highways maintenance and repair programme over the last few months, during which time much of the work was done whilst traffic volumes were low. The biggest part of the schedule involved surface dressing. 214 roads in the Harrogate area will have received this treatment by the end of the summer, at a total cost of £2.56m.

Surface dressing is a very quick and economical process, which seals the surface of a road already in fair to good condition. A bituminous emulsion is applied to the road surface and stone chips are spread and rolled over the top. The application dries quickly and is then swept to remove excess aggregate. In urban areas like Harrogate, a further application of emulsion is applied on top and rolled in. This fixes the chips and stabilises the dressing.

Surface dressing seals the road surface, stopping water getting in, which can cause great damage to roads, especially in winter. It prolongs the life of the road and gives it a uniform appearance covering up the patchwork of earlier repairs by utility companies. After surface dressing, the road can be opened again to traffic within a very short time.

Other highways work being carried out includes: £1m of road re-surfacing and £600k highways patching at 31 sites in the area; £300k worth of reconstruction and sealing of footpaths; £0.5m programme of drainage, landslip and sinkhole repairs; £165k worth of repairs to the parapets of ten bridges in and around Harrogate. The county council has some 1,800 bridges throughout the county, many are heritage, listed structures, with attractive stone parapets, which are frequently damaged especially by HGVs and large agricultural vehicles.