Harrogate residents share their final thoughts on the UCI Cycling Championships

From the impact its had both positive and negative, here are some of the opinions of Harrogate Advertiser readers from our letters pages.

Read: This is what Harrogate readers have thought of the UCI Cycling ChampionshipsCycling fan Kevin Douglas from Harrogate shared how proud he was that the town was at the heart of such a world class event.

He said: "It was a great sight to see Yorkshire and Harrogate beamed to the rest of the world and it has shown the area off to millions of people.

"Whatever anyone says this was a major event on a par with the World Athletics Championships which were being held at the same time and takes a massive amount of planning and organisation for the hosts of the event for what will be a once in a lifetime opportunity."

He also went on to thank the organisers of the event: "The local authorities, police, Visit Yorkshire and the many volunteers who showed what a friendly and welcoming place Harrogate is. I know that staff put in a huge amount of work not only in the planning but also during the event."

Harrogate resident Chris Ramus shared that there wasn't disruption everywhere during the UCI Cycling Championships, if you lived north of Otley road and in the Duchy area, inconvenience level was quite high.

"There were many hours of lock down where residents couldn’t go anywhere. Even if you walked during race times, you were restricted. Published closure times changed without warning, trapping residents wherever they happened to be."

The damage to the Stray following the event has been a major talking point of the Championships.

Judith Jones from Knaresborough said: "The UCI event is over - for good or bad it happened. What isn’t over is the devastation of the West Park Stray, which has become apparent over the last few days.

"No doubt HBC Parks and Gardens Department will be tasked with restoration, though this may take a long time. Questions have already been asked about the cost of this. Will this be borne by council tax-payers?

"The main consideration, however, is that the damage done to The Stray is repaired. It is a very sad sight at present."

Harrogate resident Angela Henson asked whether the Christmas market, usually based on Montpelier Stray, be moved this year to prevent damage to the surface.

She said: "Most visitors are dropped off by the market and don’t venture into town. Might this year be the occasion to site this event where it should be in the town centre streets and then at least the local businesses might also benefit and the Stray might be spared another trashing?"

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