Letter: When will Stray work be done?
It is now seven months since the UCI event left the grass of West Park Stray ruined and some of the tarmac paths damaged beyond repair.
Some levelling work was done in the months that followed but we had a very wet winter that delayed completion.
However, the weather since mid-March has been perfect for ground works and grass seeding, yet nothing has happened.
By way of comparison, I see that, despite the pandemic, Yorkshire Water’s contractors, Bentley, have continued to work on the large sewerage project in the showground fields and off Hookstone Road.
This week Bentley appear to have completed the landscaping of the large areas of grassland - which are just like the Stray.
The Stray is our town’s green lung and we have lost maybe a third of it.
It contributes to the mental well-being of our residents but West Park Stray still looks like a moon-scape.
It should have been turned over, harrowed and re-seeded at the start of this growing season.
We see on Harrogate Borough Council’s Stray web page (which appears not to have been updated since February) that “re-seeding will begin in the spring”.
We appreciate that the pandemic has affected everybody’s and every business’s life but surely a landscape contractor could have been working on reinstatement while following the distancing rules as did Bentley’s sub-contractor.
When will the work be done?