The Parish Council has, for several months, been seeking a response from North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) Highways to our enquiries with regard to traffic management on Minskip Road, Staveley. Following the intervention of our NYCC ward Councillor, Robert Windass, we have now received the following statement from the Highways department:
In light of your enquiry, we have looked at the accident statistics on Minskip Road, Staveley for the last 5 years which indicate that there have been no incidents which are attributable to vehicle speeds. Given the absence of an established accident record in the area, I do not believe that the application of the assessment formula to any traffic calming scheme to reduce vehicle speeds in the area would result in a score which warranted the provision of funding.
Funding for traffic calming and highway improvement schemes is extremely limited following the reduced budgets North Yorkshire County Council now have to operate with and any scheme proposed would have to achieve a very high priority on the county-wide Integrated Transport (IT) budget to attract any funding. As the IT budget has been severely reduced across the board, it is likely that the only schemes being funded for the foreseeable future are those that are likely to achieve significant casualty-reduction results.
Any scheme proposal [which would include traffic calming measures as you request in your email] would have to be assessed using the formula which calculates it’s cost/benefit ‘score’, which then allows comparison with other similar schemes across the whole of North Yorkshire. The prioritised list that is then established as a result of this process ensures that the limited funding available can be allocated to the schemes that will deliver the most benefits.
In summary, therefore, the absence of any established personal injury accident data means that this location is not considered a priority for the limited funds available – the worst situations must be dealt with first.
Whilst I appreciate this may not be the positive response you were seeking and may appear to be disappointing on one front, it does indicate that perhaps the perception of danger is greater than the reality.
The speed survey results have shown that speed enforcement is required, however the Police have not enforced any 20 mph limits in the Harrogate area, so I shall take this up with my contact in the Traffic Police, and get a written response about it from them.
I will contact you again when I get a response from the police.
We will keep you posted!
