OPEN MEETING for the public to attend – 09:30AM at Cairn Hotel (Promenade Suite), Ripon Road, Harrogate, HG1 2JD
MINUTES FROM THE PREVIOUS MEETING held on Thursday 15 March 2018
North Yorkshire County Council County Area Committee for the Harrogate District
Point 46. Receipt of Petition – “Save Nidd Gorge and the Nidderdale Greenway. Listen to the Harrogate Area County Councillors and remove the inner relief road package E from the public consultation process”
Considered
The report of the Assistant Chief Executive (Legal and Democratic Services) which:
Advised of the receipt of a petition containing 2,314 signatures. The petition asked for the Area Committee’s recommendation, for the removal of the inner relief road package E from public consultation, to be supported.
Advised that the Area Committee’s recommendation, together with this petition, had been considered by the County Council’s Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services (BES) and the BES Executive Members on 15 December 2017. The Corporate Director BES had decided, amongst other things, to develop further the sustainable transport elements of both packages B and E and to develop further the alignments of the Inner Relief Road.
Invited the Area Committee, after it had heard a presentation of the petition from the petition organiser, to discuss the petition and agree a response.
The petition organiser, Mr Chris Kitson (Chair of Nidd Gorge Community Action), spoke for five minutes to present the petition to the Area Committee. A copy of his speaking note is at Appendix A to these Minutes.
Members discussed the petition. County Councillor Richard Cooper said that, for probably the first time in 18 to 19 years as an elected Councillor, he felt that he had been ignored. He explained that he felt that way because the reasons put forward now for proceeding were different to the reasons put forward at the Area Committee’s previous meeting. Also he was unhappy about inaccurate comments which had been made about the reasons why he had voted as he had at the previous meeting. Other Members commented that they too felt ignored and queried why the decision had been made by an officer rather than a democratically elected County Councillor. A Member commented that, when the consultation was started, he hoped that the route of a relief road would be very clearly defined as that would focus residents’ minds.
David Bowe (Corporate Director – BES) advised that he was incredible sorry if the Area Committee felt like it had been ignored because that had certainly not been the intention and not what had happened when the decision had been made on 15 December 2017. He advised that his role, in making the decision on 15 December, was to represent the County Council’s Executive and that he had delegated authority to make the decision. The decision he was making was primarily about consultation, although it might appear to the Area Committee it was to keep the line of the relief road. He commented that, if the intention had been to ignore the Area Committee, the public consultation would have gone ahead in December, as had been presented to the Area Committee. Instead, the Area Committee’s comments had been entirely taken on board in making a decision on 15 December. He emphasised that the decision he had had to make on 15 December, in conjunction with the two BES Executive Members, was either to progress with any form of congestion relief for Harrogate, or not. He had had, in taking on board the Area Committee’s comments, to come up with a way of moving forward a congestion approach for Harrogate. He could have decided to report directly to the Executive in autumn 2018 but instead had decided to come back to the Area Committee with more information.
David Bowe emphasised that his goal was not to deliver a relief road. His goal was to deal with congestion. He advised that he had received, over many years, numerous complaints about traffic congestion in Harrogate and that there was very little the County Council could do without having a major impact and major investment. The key challenge was a relief road. H explained that, if the public were to say, en masse, that they did not want a relief road and did not want any other option either then effectively the County Council had done absolutely everything it could to mitigate congestion in Harrogate.
David Bowe advised that the issue around funding was absolutely crucial. This was in the context of officers dealing with officers rather than politicians dealing with politicians nationally. He explained that the assessment of funding opportunities for initiatives of this scale, which might be either a relief road or major sustainable transport improvements, were effectively decided by civil servants using a formula and in competition. All highways monies which the County Council gained from Government were now in competition. In doing that, the County Council had to comply robustly and compete against other Councils to get whatever money was on the table. If the County Council was to gain funding for sustainable transport solutions in Harrogate, the County Council had to table something which would absolutely, and robustly, nail every other option. Civil servants would ask, for certain, “Why didn’t you do the other thing?” and question the other opportunities, which clearly included a relief road. The County Council required that robust evidence in order to remove a relief road and therefore be able to stand alongside other Councils who were competing for funding.
David Bowe advised that officers were currently seeking specifically to establish a more accurate conclusion or even get to a point where robust evidence was acquired in order to remove the relief road. He advised that he would not take that decision personally and that any such recommendation would go to the County Council’s Executive for decision. An alternative to going to public consultation in order to establish a robust position was to do a benefit cost ratio analysis of a relief road. To do that, a lot more work was needed and more money had to be spent. In summary, the argument was, if officers did an assessment of a relief road, and the score landed at below 2.0, then there was a robust reason for not taking forward a relief road. If the score came over 2.0, then officers would report back to the Area Committee that definitive information saying “here are the outcomes of the study, there’s the evidence that we’ve got, do you want to go to consultation on all those options?” If the Area Committee’s answer was “no”, the situation would be reported to the Executive for decision. David Bowe acknowledged that the previous report contained less information than could have been provided.
In response to a Member’s question, David Bowe advised that there was good reason why the route of a relief road was not specific, namely, if a line was to be drawn on a plan, the County Council would immediately receive blight claims which it did not want because the relief road might not actually be built. Therefore the relief road had to be generic.
David Bowe concluded that, in the feedback he had received from the Area Committee, the one thing that he was shocked about, and he was very apologetic about, was that the Area Committee felt that it had been ignored. He asserted that the Area Committee was absolutely not ignored.
Resolved
That this Area Committee accepts and notes the petition and recognises that it is unable to do anything more given the decision made by the Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services on 15 December 2017.
Point 47. Harrogate Congestion Study Update
Considered
The report of the Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services which provided details of the approach to, and timescales for, the latest phase of the Harrogate Congestion Study.
Andrew Bainbridge (Team Leader LTP, Highways and Transportation, Business and Environmental Services) introduced the report, highlighting developments subsequent to 15 December 2017. The developments included the following:
The work previously referred to as “Harrogate Relief Road Review” had been retitled “Harrogate Congestion Study” to reflect more accurately the broad range of analysis that was being undertaken.
Officers had been working with the County Council’s framework consultants, WSP, to determine an approach to delivery. An outline programme of work was currently being finalised. The programme would facilitate analysis of each package to allow a greater level of understanding of its ability to effect congestion reduction and more detailed development of the sustainable transport measures. Small technical ‘task and finish’ groups of County Council officers and WSP staff would work-up a series of possible specific interventions, consistent with packages B and E. These would be costed and, wherever possible, assessed quantitatively to provide an understanding of the traffic relief that might be delivered.
WSP had been asked to undertake further assessment work on potential alignments of inner relief road options. This would allow a more detailed estimate of costs to be developed, and consequently, alongside more detailed traffic modelling, it would permit the calculation of a benefit to cost ratio. Should the benefit cost ratio for the inner relief road be under 2.0 (the generally accepted ratio for successful applications for funding of capital projects), a report would be submitted to the County Council’s Executive on whether to proceed with any further development of the scheme. Otherwise, further development work on both options B and E would continue and a report would be submitted to the Area Committee’s meeting in November 2018.
Due to additional work being undertaken on option development at the current stage, the programme for this work had been revised. The project Steering Group, which included elected Members, would continue to meet to consider progress and outputs from the study. In addition, a Congestion Study Engagement Group was in the process of being established with the aim of performing an advisory function and to check and challenge the development approach proposed by the project working group (NYCC/HBC officers and WSP) and to make suggestions and bring a business view and local insight to the process. A report would then be submitted to the Area Committee in November 2018 setting out the results of the analysis and the potential next steps.
The Chairman invited the two members of the public, who had given valid notice, to address the meeting. They were:
Malcolm Margolis on behalf of Zero Carbon Harrogate who expressed thanks to the Area Committee for its decision of 1 December 2017 and to the County Council for changing the name of the review. He also put forward an argument for the inclusion of Package A in the forthcoming public consultation. He advised that Zero Carbon Harrogate were running public workshops about traffic congestion solutions and would feed their views into the County Council’s consultation process. He also expressed the hope that composition of the Congestion Study Engagement Group would reflect that WSP had given top ranking to sustainable transport solutions. A full copy of the statement from Malcolm Margolis is at Appendix B to these Minutes.
Shan Oakes of Harrogate and District Green Party who posed 10 questions which she suggested County Councillors should consider. She commented that these were fundamental questions to identify what was important in people’s lives and should make it easy to know what to do about traffic congestion. A full copy of the statement and questions from Shan Oakes is at Appendix B to these Minutes.
Members questioned David Bowe (Corporate Director – Business and Environmental Services) about membership of the Congestion Study Engagement Group and were advised that this had not yet been confirmed. David Bowe emphasised, however, that the Engagement Group needed to represent all appropriate users, including sustainable NYCC County Area Committee for the Harrogate District – Minutes of 7 December 2017/11 transport groups, public transport providers, business etc. He also clarified that members of the Engagement Group would not be voting, and the purpose of the Engagement Group was to feed information, at a point in time, into the process.
Members asked whether the Relief Road would definitely be included in a public consultation. In response, David Bowe advised that it was not definite that the Relief Road would be included in a public consultation. He added that, if the Relief Road did not achieve a benefit cost ratio of 2.0, it would not, in his opinion, be included in the consultation. He surmised that, subject to the conclusions of the technical team, if the Relief Road achieved a benefit cost ratio of more than 2.0, it would be classed as a robust solution to congestion and therefore the civil servants would expect the Relief Road to be considered in the process. Consequently, the Relief Road would come to the Area Committee, as part of a package and with more detail, together with information from the Engagement Group and the recommendation from the Steering Group. The Area Committee would then take a view and that view would be submitted to the Executive for decision on that occasion.
Members questioned David Bowe about that process which he had just described. They suggested that that process was likely to produce the same Area Committee view as it had reached in December 2017. David Bowe explained that the primary objective for him, his staff and, he believed, the County Council was to attempt to address congestion in Harrogate. He advised that elected Members were completely shackling him to do that if, without robust evidence, they took out the Relief Road option. He suggested that, if Members wanted him to solve congestion through sustainable transport measures, they should allow him to follow the process because then he would be able to go to civil servants with a robust case for funding for sustainable transport measures. The civil servants would then see that the County Council had robustly checked all other options and had ruled them out. David Bowe added that, if that process was not followed, the only funding which would be available for sustainable transport measures would be a small amount from existing County Council budgets.
County Councillor Paul Haslam sought confirmation that the Relief Road was nothing to do with connectivity and turning the A59 into a M62 equivalent. Andrew Bainbridge responded that the work was primarily to address traffic congestion in Harrogate but, in turn, would have some benefits in terms of longer distance connectivity. He emphasised that it was not, and never had been, part of a plan to upgrade the A59, from the A1 across to Lancashire, to anything resembling the M62. Andrew Bainbridge highlighted that that had been made clear, and had been in the public domain, since 2016 and also in a number of previous reports to this Area Committee.
County Councillor Paul Haslam advised that, having read the reports which talked about doing a benefit cost ratio, he suspected that officers had already done a benefit cost ratio. Andrew Bainbridge provided an absolute assurance that officers had not got an indicative benefit cost ratio for a Relief Road.
County Councillor Michael Harrison:
thanked David Bowe for attending this meeting and commented that he had found it very useful to hear about the context of the process;
Commented that he had heard the strong message that, if Harrogate was serious about getting significant funds for any kind of congestion relief for the district, whether that be for sustainable transport measures or road building, a process must be gone through;
Commented that he had also heard that, if Members shackled the Corporate Director Business and Environmental Services at this stage, then their decision was actually to do nothing.
