Good Evening, Officer? - We need a Cycling Officer badly

Interesting chat with some local cycling advocates last night. Lots of people are putting plenty of effort into making Harrogate a more cycle friendly town and its certainly isn't just me banging the drum for this. If you do Facebook check out Ricahrd Marshalll's Ride Harrogate page he is getting some love from a more hardcore downhill community which is great to see. There is also a lot of lobbying going on in less public forum's than the internet and I don't want to undermine any of that by shining a light on it right now. Seems like this blog might be a good place to celebrate successes and to hold local government to account for its shortcomings but whilst channels are open and negotiations are ongoing we should let things progress.

Problem is as we found out over the Knaresborough Road fiasco NYCC really aren't that interested in sustainable transport compared to other County Councils. We are now pursuing a formal complaint with NYCC over how they dealt with our request for cycle lanes on the Knaresborough Road and we will keep you informed, I'm expecting the fob off once more if I'm honest. North Yorkshire County Council  it appears advocate sustainable transport in words but when it comes to actually doing anything about it, currently they prioritise the needs of cars before anyone else and seem to throw scraps as an afterthought.

Last night I asked what had let to the most success over the last ten years or so and having a Cycling Officer employed by Local Government to fight for provision for cyclists, someone who would make sure that any planning or transport developments take account of the needs of cyclists, was the single thing that had the most effect. When the last officer left her job she was not replaced and the sorry mess we have now, where bikers are fobbed off or worse not even considered (see the M &S development on the Leeds Road where NYCC admitted they they forgot to think about bikes at all in the planning process), was the result.

In a day or so we will be bothering as many people as possible  starting a petition and campaigning to get NYCC to put someone in post so that cycling gets paid a little more than the current lip service and Harrogate can really become a bike town.