Funding call for repairs to highways

On top of the 75 miles of surface dressing already being carried out in this area, and proper resurfacing of key local roads, including Skipton Road, Beckwith Road*, Dragon Road, Bower Road, Penny Pot Lane, this extra money will pay for repairs to the following roads:

Harlow Moor Road (resurfacing of the junction with Morel Grove)

Montpellier Parade (resurfacing)

Otley Road (mainly resurfacing, some patching)

Spring Lane, Pannal (resurfacing)

A61 Station Parade (resurfacing)

A661 Wetherby Road (resurfacing from Empress Roundabout to Sainsbury’s, then patching)

There will also be a further £400k worth of pre-surface dressing patching carried out, some of which may involve Jetpatcher equipment, which has been in use in various parts of Harrogate in recent weeks.

Residents of Beckwith Road will be pleased that the county’s contractors have finally gained access to this road following extensive mains renewals by Yorkshire Water in the Harlow Hill area. Resurfacing work should be finished next week.

New highways manager for Harrogate Area

The current Area Manager, Nigel Smith, who also oversees Hambleton and Selby areas, has been appointed to the position of Head of Highways Operations for the whole county, a position he will take up next month.

This promotion will mean that a new Area Manager will be appointed shortly, and the successful applicant will be responsible for Harrogate only.

Cycle Path on Otley Road

North Yorkshire County Council’s bid for £3.2m from the Government’s National Productivity Investment Fund in 2017 to upgrade transport infrastructure in the Otley Road area was successful, and has been topped up with £1.4m of additional funding from NYCC and HBC.

This money was made available in April this year and, as part of this scheme, our highways officers and sustainable transport consultants have been working on designs for an off-road cycle path from the Prince of Wales Roundabout up to Cardale Park.

As part of preliminary design work, meetings have been arranged with the Harrogate Cycle Forum and the Stray Defence Association in order to receive the views of these organisations before the proposals are published.

It is planned to form an Engagement Group to include interested parties, including local residents, to receive further advice before final design plans are completed and construction work begins.

Bond End Air Quality Improvement Scheme

A “Meet the Contractor” information event was held at Knaresborough House. This gave residents the opportunity to meet the contractor selected to carry out the works at this busy, complex junction.

PBS Construction are due to start on site on 10 September. There will be temporary traffic lights during the day, and periods of full road closure from 6pm. A safety officer will be permanently present, ready to introduce manual traffic light control if necessary to minimise delays. The scheme, which involves removal of all traffic lights, the construction of two mini-roundabouts, the introduction of four zebra crossings and realignment of kerbs is expected to take nine weeks to complete.

Superfast North Yorkshire – another huge boost

The County Council’s Superfast North Yorkshire project received another huge boost last month with the confirmation that its bid for funding from the Government’s Rural Development Programme for England had been successful. The award is worth £11.15m.

The SFNY project was started by NYCC in 2012 and under the first two phases of broadband expansion up until the end of 2017 brought superfast connections to 166,000 North Yorkshire properties, which would not otherwise have had a service provided by the

commercial market. The position now is that 90% of all premises – both domestic and business – in North Yorkshire have access to high quality broadband.

The contract for the latest phase of expansion under Phase 3 is worth £20.5m was awarded in February and will bring superfast speeds to a further 14,239 premises, most of those using fibre-to-the-premise technology with download speeds up to 330Mbps.

Phase 3 will take coverage up to 95%.

The latest tranche of funding will allow NYCC to get even closer to 100% coverage.

High quality broadband is increasingly important for our homes and businesses, and providing excellent digital connectivity to all homes and businesses represents one of North Yorkshire County Council’s highest priorities.