'My child's trauma is still going on' says Harrogate mum as pressure grows for better road safety

Harrogate resident Stephanie Talbot opened up about her concerns to councillors at a meeting of North Yorkshire Council’s Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Committee about the need to fulfil its own pledges more quickly.

Phase 2 of the council’s own road safety plans focuses on expanding the successful 20mph speed limit zones, particularly around schools like Harrogate Grammar, Rossett School, Rossett Acre Primary, and Ashville College.

This next phase aims to create safer environments by addressing streets where traffic calming is needed, with the goal of reducing road collisions and encouraging active travel for the approximately 5,000 students in the area.

In a prepared statement read at the council meeting, Stephanie Talbot outlined the situation in personal terms.

"Imagine for just one second that you could be the decision maker for keeping the streets safer by reducing the speed of vehicles?

"Now imagine that that process takes at least four years to complete.

"During that time a child walking on those streets has started and almost left high school.

"That’s the reality of my youngest child.

"He no longer walks to school, he used to, until his older brother got hit whilst walking on the pavement to school and witnessing it.

"His parents are too scared to let him walk, as the devastation of the accident caused our families life to shatter.

"Now imagine a girl who had her first car for one month before it got destroyed by the very same vehicle that hit her brother and his friend

"She eventually got another car but the mental toll it took on her, she’d only just stopped therapy this year, two-and-a-half years later.

"A few months after this, another speeding vehicle, the very people that are meant to protect you, the police, crashes her car off the road.

"Her car rolls over four to five times.

"Another car destroyed and more trauma for her and our family again.

"She was very lucky not to have been killed or to have killed someone walking on the pavement, as her car landed in a garden.

"Would you imagine this to be in your town?

"Because both accidents are within five minutes’ drive of our house.

"So now we have to travel on two of our nearest roads and see the scenes almost every day.

"All because no one can make immediate decisions within the council that could prevent accidents like these.

"Speed kills, injures and destroys lives.

"I cannot comprehend how a council can ever get anything done if a decision about reducing speed for a certain section of the community takes four years considering there have been two major incidents in its location – Otley Road and Yew Tree Lane.

"I have no faith in your system. I live with the fact that our roads are dangerous.

"I feel like living in this town, the council favours cars and convenience over people.

"I hope you feel safe walking on the pavements around Harrogate because I don’t."

The primary objective of Phase 2 of the North Yorkshire Council road safety scheme is to create a safer environment for school children.