Traffic chaos: Good news on Harrogate roadworks - and bad!

Harrogate drivers facing up to 25 minute waits in the Prince of Wales roundabout area this week rejoiced in one road closure being lifted - but they have been warned there's more to come.
Traffic queues up Leeds Road in Harrogate on Monday.Traffic queues up Leeds Road in Harrogate on Monday.
Traffic queues up Leeds Road in Harrogate on Monday.

Although Yorkshire Water told the Harrogate Advertiser it had been working hard to mitigate the effects, the tailbacks were the worst experienced by motorists since pipe-laying work began in the area in January.

Road jams stretched right down Station Parade to Victoria Avenue crossroads, right down York Place, right up Otley Road and right down Leeds Road.

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A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water said: "We appreciate the work may cause a certain amount of traffic disruption near to the Prince of Wales roundabout which we are doing our best to control with additional temporary traffic lights along Otley Road and York Place to prevent the roundabout from becoming gridlocked."To help alleviate this traffic a little we removed the lane closures on York Place on Monday."

The roadworks on Leeds Road, which started last Saturday, are the latest phase of Yorkshire Water's ongoing £3m scheme to install six miles of new underground water pipework.

This latest phase required two-way traffic lights on Leeds Road in both directions in order to conduct the work safely , manned from 7am to 7pm daily to help control traffic flow as best as possible. This phase of work on Leeds Road is scheduled to be completed by the end of April.

The next phase after that will move onto York Place.

The lane closures on York Place reopened on Monday but the temporary traffic lights remain in place.

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A spokesperson for Yorkshire Water said "We’ve worked extensively with North Yorkshire County Council’s Highways Department and Harrogate Borough Council regarding every aspect of this essential scheme to try and minimise traffic disruption."We agreed to avoid work on the roundabout itself which would have caused a higher level of disruption."At the end of the day, this is essential work necessary to provide extra capacity to meet the predicted water needs of the growing number of new developments, whilst also improving the resilience of the overall water supply to the area."