The vision thing - Harrogate the bike town

Helen Flynn Lib Dem councillor and prospective parliamentary candidate for these environs has been ruffling feathers recently. She has blogged about why we need to make Harrogate a bike town, I agree with her, we do. She has also had a pop at Borough and County Councils and "the Tories" for not all working together to make this happen, with a few caveats (some people are working hard), I agree with her. Thing is she is detail lite and she risks alienating the people who are already working hard to make Harrogate a bike town, that would be counter productive

I have to say she got on my nerves a bit. It all seemed a bit "well if we just thought big it would happen". Then I got to thinking I have been beating on the doors of local government and local politicians for two years trying to raise this very agenda and it has got us all, well not that far. I have whinged in the past that the Liberals weren't interested. At least now they are I should give them the benefit of the doubt. So I have put my dummy back in. There seems no harm in dreaming big, hell the Tour De France is coming. Here as a plea for unity but also in a spirit of ambition are some thoughts. Not just off the top of my head but trying to look at what has worked elsewhere in the world. At least finally we seem as a town to be having the debate.

Here is my vision of what Harrogate would look like as a bike town.

Harrogate as a bike town would be somewhere my 8 year old son could ride around on his bike. Not on his own at least not past the local shop, but with me and the rest of the family. There are places where this can happen currently but after you have ridden to Ripley and down the Beryl Burton there aren't that many others. If he wants to ride on any of Harrogate's main arterial roads his dad would just laugh at him and tell him to keep watching the telly.

Harrogate the bike town will integrate and sign its existing piecemeal but reasonably extensive off the road cycle network and get people to be aware of what we have.

Harrogate the bike town will have high quality commuter friendly routes to the cities of York and Leeds. These seemingly car only accessible destinations will attract a surprising number of commuters. Some will do it one way and bring their bike back by public transport.

Harrogate the bike town will have separated on road provision for bikes on Knaresborough Rd, Skipton Road, Leeds Road and Harlow Hill. This won't be a crap 1m wide strip on the road but will involve some form of physical separation from the traffic like what the Dutch do and we are beginning to do in forward thinking towns over here.

On all minor residential roads in Harrogate there will be a 20mph speed limit. This reduces cycling fatalities and accidents more than any other intervention and it makes these roads easy to cycle on.

Harrogate the bike town will have cycle parking at all public transport stations and you will be able to take bikes on public transport, no drama, no booking.

25% of all car journeys in Harrogate will be undertaken by bike or on foot. People will think back as they drive easily around and remember the bad old days when the Skipton Rd was one of the most congested roads in the country.

Harrogate the bike town will have a more car and HGV free centre. This will make it more bike and pedestrian friendly. When this was tried in New York in a few neighbourhoods it increased footfall to businesses too. A free park and ride bus scheme operating from the showground will bring additional business to the shops there as well as allowing people easy access to the town centre which is considered a retail gem due to its mix of high quality shops and historic architecture and relaxed feel. A bike hire scheme operating from the showground will allow those that want to, to get into town along the new Greenway extension.

In Harrogate the bike town all primary and secondary schools will have traffic free routes from their main catchment areas to allow walking and cycling to them and there will be safe cycle storage when you get there.

The Tour De France memorial sportive will be an event of national significance. Mark Cavendish will turn out one year and repeat his near legendary performance from Stage 1  2014 despite being older than three quarters of the field, perhaps form is temporary and class is for ever after all?

GP's will offer cycle training amongst a range of other exercise therapies and discounts on bike purchases to their patients as treatment for the increasing range of diseases linked to sedentary lifestyles. As a result of this intervention despite having an ageing population Harrogate will have one of the highest senses of well being in western Europe.

Harrogate the bike town will be a popular overnight stop on the Way of The Roses coast to coast cycle route. This green tourism will be bringing some high spending affluent customers to a town that is now appealing to a broader demographic than it did in 2014.

Commuting rates by bike will be 25% of all journeys in rush hour. local employers will be delighted by the reduction to their sickness rates and the increased productivity from their staff.

All of this will have been paid for by increasing the existing 2% spend as a proportion of the roads budget to 5% for a 10 to twenty year period. For Harrogate in 2014 this will mean investment rises from approximately 200K a year to half a million quid.

There will have been resistance to most of the above from what is a fairly conservative (small c) town but in hindsight people will agree that Harrogate the bike town is now a nicer, healthier and even more affluent place to walk, cycle and drive around than it was in 2014.

Northern Rail fail

Mrs Cycle Harrogate is doing a day a week at the university in York. She likes a bit of learning and she was looking forward to starting.

She had a quick look at where the venue was in York. A bit too far to walk, but only 10 minutes on a bike and York is set up for bikes, she was excited. Then the wheels came off. She would need to get her bike to York on the train. Trouble is you can't just take a bike on the train. Northern Rail will take a massive two bikes but you can't book. So no guarantee you can get your bike on the iron horse. So your journey plans may or may not work. That's pants then, might as well say "We don't do bikes". Then she thought about hiring a Boris bike type thing at the other end, but the scheme in York isn't working yet. Then she looked at a bus at the other end and with the train ticket it was well over a tenner and was going to take another 25 mins on top of the train journey and life is too short, you know?

In the end she gave in and took her car with just one person, bad but perfectly understandable. That's how the roads end up full of nearly empty cars. Because we can't design an integrated public transport system that will let people make sustainable transport decisions. Even when they want to.

I raised this with Northern Rail on twitter and they said they were bound by their franchise and nothing could be done, it was the government's fault. I think they were wrong, I think what they meant was. We have a minimum service guarantee and as we are meeting it to do any more would impact on our profits. Suffice to say in the short term taking a bike to York on a train will be no easier.

 Now dear reader there is talk afoot about electrifying York to Leeds by Andrew Jones MP. That would be great, there would be an enhanced service, more trains. As part of that process if it happens, can we get some bikes on the trains and some WiFi? That would be nice. Rather than the current old skool rolling stock we have. Some of which  I worked on the design of, back in a time when I was still wet behind the ears last century. When people used drawing boards, cars had chokes and two Britain's winning the Tour De France was an impossible dream for fools.

And now in our dreamland we have won the hardest sporting event in the world, twice! Once with a rider who can't really climb all that well, that's amazing. I still get goose bumps thinking about Wiggo leading Cav out on the Champs Elysee. Yet we can't make daily exercise for everybody easy, in a country with a huge obesity and early death from inactive lifestyles problem. That's really pretty poor when you think about it.

NYCC say no to Advanced Stop Lines on Leeds Road

I never did hear back From Tim Coyne the transport planner at North Yorkshire County Council, but someone forwarded me his response.  NYCC have now reviewed their decision to put Advanced Stop Lines on only 1 of the four sides of the junction  and you will never guess what? It turns out they were right. Well blow me down with a local government body that claims to promote cycling but often can't put its money where it's mouth is.

TIM SAYS NO. He goes into some detail about why he can't spend a few quid on paint and make this busy junction suitable for bike riders, but in the end it comes down to the fact that he and NYCC don't want to. They don't think its important and so they won't. We have given them all sorts of options they have rejected them all  and so we and you dear cyclist, lose.

They can of course re-surface most of the Tour De France route so a couple of hundred pro-cyclists can ride over it for just one day. Just saying, I will be cheering with everyone else but Leeds Road will be a shocking junction for bike riders when NYCC Highways have finished with it, and for years, just saying.

A bit of a do for Beryl Burton

I've just got back from the Nidd Gorge end of the Beryl Burton Cyleway after the re-opening ceremony. We lugged my old petrol stove over and made everyone a cup of tea and forced mince pies down them. It seemed like the least we could do if they were going to stand on the chilly, shady side of the river and listen to some middle-aged blogger rambling on. It was for my money "a good do" and best of all we got to honour Beryl Burton's memory in the presence of her family.

Charle and Denise

I managed to mutter a few words and thank all those people who helped secure the funding to get the re-surface done. If I missed you out I'm sorry. I also talked about how I think Beryl Burton doesn't get the recognition she deserves in her former  home towns of Harrogate and Knaresborough. I hope today went a small way to righting that wrong. Then my boys held a ribbon and Charlie Burton and Denise Burton-Cole our guests of honour and as it turns out really nice people, cut a ribbon. All a bit old school I know, but I think Charlie was really touched and he was holding back a tear.

Many thanks to everyone who turned out on a pretty chilly afternoon. Some of you I didn't know but here is a roll call of those people I knew or those who I met down by the riverbank. It was great to put names to faces, thank you for all being kind but it was really about all of you, I just started the ball rolling.

Councillor Anne Jones was there she championed this thank you. Andy Grinter from Knaresborough chamber made himself known. I was hoping for a longer chat as he has some legacy ideas I want to try and help with but I'm sure there is time.

Wheel Easy where there in spades, two Margolises and a brace of Weeks amongst maybe a dozen others who I don't know. They have done more than there share for cycling in Harrogate good on 'em. County Councillor Richard Cooper who punched above his weight on this one, said hello and we found more common ground than I expected, which is a real positive and bodes well.

James Skaith was there with his PCSO hat on with a colleague. They continue to be supporters of cycling in our town and good on them for that.

 Andrew Jones,  Denise Burton-Cole, Councillor Annen Jones, Charlie Burton, Dave Prince

Andrew Jones MP rushed over from another appointment in Knaresborough and we had a good natter, he is increasingly supportive of cycling and that can only be good news. Thanks to him for is public support on this one, life gets easier when your MP is helping.

Then I got chatting to Denise, turns out they lived in Starbeck for a bit when Beryl was still around. Now I'm thinking when the tour is here and we have the word's media at our disposal for 48 hours. Perhaps Starbeck should take the opportunity to honour one of the finest cyclists this country has ever seen. Let me have a think. Oh and Denise knows Phil Liggettt quite well which won't hurt.

All in all a grand day out. I like a good news story they are a lot more fun to write than than the whingy ones I sometimes churn out.

So well done Harrogate and Knaresborough you did right by Beryl Burton and her family today and my boys got a nice smooth cycleway that they rode on from their house, all of this I like.

Denise and Charlie with PCSO James Skaith

Your Invited

It seems important to celebrate the Beryl Burton's recent resurfacing with a bit of a fanfare. So on the Saturday the 30th of November at 2pm by the start of the cycle way at the Knaresborough end, you know, the bit down by the river. We will be having a bit of a thing. Denise and Charlie, Beryl's Daughter and Husband are coming along as guests of honour, you are invited too. Andrew Jones MP is on the guest list along with a few other councillors as yet TBA and I will be getting along as much press as possible.

Lets turn out to show the District we value this stuff, more importantly lets turn out to honour the greatest cyclist this country has ever produced. That's quite a claim in light of a few we have had recently, but in Beryl Burton's case its no idle boast.

Anyway if you wanted to join us, that would be great and then I reckon a beer in the Half Moon might be appropriate.

"The train now approaching platform one, runs on elctrickery"

Andrew Jones MP sent me a letter. I get a few from him, they are usually him telling me that mine and his parties views don't really align on a particular issue. Often after I have filled in some online protest or other. In fairness he always replies. I'm glad I'm not an MP, people like me must be a right royal pain in the backside.

Anyway this one was different, he was letting me know he has just made the case in Parliament to get the Leeds to York rail line electrified. Why should this humble, ranting, often unwashed cycle campaigner care? Well if it goes all electrical and whizzy you can run more trains. If you can run more trains you might take some cars off the roads. If you took some cars off the road it might make them easier to cycle on, so thats why I'm in favour. Oh and you have the potential to generate your electricity from renewables which means less pollution than diesel, so its better from a quality of life point of view too. Good on our Mp for making the case. He can count on Cycle Harrogate's support for the initiative but I have one request to improve the bid.

Commuting or holidaying by train and then finishing off your journey on a bike has the potential to take the car out of the equation all together. Thing is getting them on a train in this country is often harder than getting a bottle of water on an aircraft in your hand baggage. That is unless you are lover of really shiny things and can afford a funky, folding Brompton.

What would be nice, no what would be great is if we could build in some bike friendly rolling stock into the proposal. We have spent some money making Harrogate station an easy place to cycle from and its due to get easier when the next chunk of LSTF funding money is spent. If we joined up that with a rail network that embraces bikes rather than treats them like lepers. Then we really would be making our sustainable transport offer a little better than it is at the moment.

Rejoice - A new overcoat for Beryl Burton

I'm halfway through painting my utility room this afternoon when my phone starts pinging up twitter messages.

It's Rossett Conservatives @RossetCons letting me know the delightful and very welcome news that the Harrogate Knaresborough Beryl Burton Cycleway will be resurfaced in full as we all originally wanted.

Here is a post from Andrew Jones MP's blog with a bit of background to what happened. What he doesn't mention is the input from Councillor Richard Cooper who I think was a key player in getting this moving and Rebbeca Burnett who I  expect did her share of the heavy lifting too.

Best of all its become a joint project between Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council. So a win for the democratic process and I don't have to go and shovel tarmac myself in a blatant media stunt a few days before the Tour De France comes. This was where my thinking was headed if we didn't get a happy outcome.

I have to say that our elected representatives have done the business on this issue. I also need to thank Gavin Rutter  @Gav_Yorks from Stray FM for picking this up and the Harrogate Advertiser for running with it, even if the picture of me made me look a little disturbing.

I look forward to riding down the Beryl Burton on my moutain bike soon, but I'm going to treat myself to some slick tyres for speed and pretend I'm Beryl Burton. It will make a change from pretending I'm Mark Cavendish.

Harrogate Hospital promote Cycling - Rejoice

I spent my lunchtime in the restaurant at  Harrogate Hospital yesterday. The HR department at the hospital have put together a leaflet with a bit of input from Cycle Harrogate. It details the cycle facilities on offer for bike riders at the hospital and gives some advice on commuting to work in Harrogate. Katy Ward and Craig from HR were there to promote the cyclescheme. This if you don't know is the government backed initiative where you can get a bike, pay for it over a year and not pay any tax or national insurance on the purchase. Basically you get a bike for a third off, more if you pay top rate tax.

I was a little apprehensive that we would spend two hours talking to no one. I couldn't have been more wrong. There was a long stream of people interested in the scheme, a few people after advice on bike parking and a few folk wanting some cycle training. I think we managed to help everyone out.

A couple of issues that did come out of all of this was that there are is not enough cycle parking at the hospital. People were complaining about struggling to get anywhere to put their bikes. Katy took this issue back with her. Lets see if anything can be done.

overflowing cycle parking

Secondly there where quite a few people who didn't know that their daily commute was right by traffic free cycleways and they were put off commuting because they thought they would have to cycle down busy roads.

In the short term I am going to make sure Katy knows about my Cycle Harrogate app and map. Hopefully sometime this financial year we will have North Yorkshire County Councils much needed improved signage and online map.

So well done to the Hospital for taking up the gauntlet Cycle Harrogate threw down this time last year. They have more than risen to the challenge. Its great to see Harrogate's largest employer doing its bit for health promotion amongst its staff. It would be good to get some of the town's other large employers doing the same if they aren't already. It looks like these events may be happening a little more often going forward and we are looking at ways to build on this excellent start.

Beryl Burton - disappointing but the trend is upward

I got no further really on Beryl Burton re-surfacing and the loss of funding, when I dug deeper. Richard Cooper got involved and asked some questions and the Stray FM news team are to run a piece on me whinging about the whole sorry mess. NYCC's position as a response to questions, is that they pulled the funding for the totality of the Beryl Burton so they could spend the money fixing potholes on the roads.  Here is part of their response:

Funding of £20k is included in the 2013/14 Highways Capital Programme for cycleway maintenance and the Beryl Burton Cycleway was subsequently identified for the use of this funding with an initial programmed date of May 2013 to carry out the work. A detailed survey of the route revealed that the estimated cost of repairing and resurfacing the whole length of the route was approximately £80k which clearly exceeded the budget for this work. Consequently, the scheme had to be revisited and the areas of greatest need are now to be repaired, this will involve the drainage and surfacing work to the first 500m or so from Bilton Hall Drive to the first cattle grid. The work is scheduled to be carried out in September to avoid the school holiday season.

I appreciate that this may not be the response that you or indeed the cycling groups were hoping for but in these times of significant funding pressures it is necessary for the County Council to make difficult decisions about highway investment.

That leaves another 60K needed to do the whole lot from the cattle grid to the Yorkshire Lass.

Agreed the potholes need filling but the Beryl Burton needs fixing too. Lets see how it rides when they have done the bit they are now committed to. There remains the possibility of some external funding to finish of the re-surfacing more on this if anything comes of it. I'm even thinking about a kickstarter campaign to crowd source some funding.

It Just worries me that we are tinkering round the edges here, patching an already patchy network that was never really planned, let alone finished. That Harrogate's tour legacy will be more low key fiddling that no one will really notice, that won't get people riding and won't lead to a nicer town to travel round.

On a more positive note the Harrogate to Spofforth Route looks to be getting some love. NYCC officers are riding it with Local Cycling activists in the next few days and have expressed some interest in the proposal Harrogate Cycle Action put together a while back. This one still has the potential for a flagship legacy project. When you talk to activists they think NYCC are more willing to consult on what development there is and that's good too.

There are also the NYCC tour legacy proposals floating around and who knows funding may arrive for that. It is just frustrating when NYCC give with one hand and take away with the the other. I wish we had a broad forum to represent the needs of bike riders in town. There are too many people with interests and we don't present a unified front, at least there are plenty of people who seem to be prioritising cycling.

So was the Beryl Burton campaign a success or a failure? Hard to say, probably more has been done than if Cycle Harrogate and a good few others had kept quiet, but as ever its a frustrating process trying to get cycling infrastructure in this town.

The Harrogate Cycling festival

I have just got back from the cycling festival at Killinghall Moor. We parked at the Hydro and cycled up, my youngest struggling up the hills but I managed a one arm pushing, one arm steering assist up the steeper bits and he did the rest on his own.

The event itself was great. The mini pump track was my kid's highlight and mine if I'm honest. I ended up racing another dad on a 16" wheeled little kids bike, great fun. There were plenty of local bike shops in attendance, some scalextric cars you peddled bikes to get moving and a BMX ramp if you were braver.

Jo Armstrong from Sports development Harrogate the brains and drive behind this was there. As we arrived she was worried nobody would show up she needn't have been.  Lots of people were there, by 12 and you were queing for your go on the attractions. People were getting their bikes coded by the police, trying out electric bikes or just eating cake and ice cream. It was a really nice atmosphere so a big thank you to Jo and Harrogate Borough Council for making it happen. When you build it they come.

I talked legacy to Jo whilst my children pebble-dashed themselves in cake and ice cream. She seems taken with the idea of traffic free to Spoforth as a Tour de France legacy for Harrogate. She is going to ride the proposed route with one of Harrogate's leading cycle boffins next week as well as North Yorkshire County Council's new sustainable transport officer as a kind of feasability study.

We got to chatting about the Nidderdale Greenway too. One thing that came up was how delighted Sir Thomas Ingeleby is with increased business on the back of the extra traffic his castle and ice Cream parlour are receiving. Surely this is a model for businesses and landowners to see cycle routes as opportunities not threats? When you build it they come.

I talked to the guy from the Big Red Bike shop too. He is now hiring bikes and surfing the wave of demand generated by the Greenway. Only 8 bikes at the moment but if traffic free to Spoforth happened he felt he would be able to upscale his operation and maybe employ someone to deal with this demand full time in the summer.

Next July when the tour is on, another local landowner will be helping to meet huge need for accommodation by putting camping fields on over Wetherby way. If these people had a traffic free route into town that would be genius. Come on Harrogate we can make this happen. Business wants it, cyclists want it. We could become more than a town with a famous tea room and a foul tasting spring. We could become a national destination on the cycling map. Incidentally the Greenway made the Guardian at the weekend. When you build it they come.

York to Harrogate then on into the Dales that route, would pull visitors and money in from tourist hotspots and we could all benefit long term from this steady stream of visitors. It would be a younger more family orientated market than the one we cater for as a town currently, one we don't really exploit fully one with a bit more cash to flash. Take a look at Grizedale Forest in the Lakes or the Manifold valley in the Peak District if you want to see these sort of schemes creating jobs and revenue.

If we build it they will come.

If we build it they will come - Traffic free to Spofforth

The Tour is still coming, the roads are going to be fixed so Cav and Wiggo can ride across them. Thing is, after that cars are going to use them mainly, which will be nice when I'm in a car but won't make me cycle anymore often.

LEGACY I keep hearing lots about LEGACY but its all talk. Here is a concrete idea for some legacy that we could all get behind.

The Nidderdale Greenway is already being loved by the people of Harrogate, be they cyclists, horse riders or walkers. I blogged about it a month ago and put a rough map online. 4500 people viewed my post, that is  viral for Cycle Harrogate. We need more of this kind of provision people want it and are using it it, this is a very good thing.

Here's is an idea that could make our town a better place and a more prosperous one too. I was sat with Harrogate Cycle Action on Monday evening being my usual stroppy self. Ginny Leonard from the CTC had come along to tell us how to try and get people interested in cycling when we realised they already are. They are mad for the Greenway in Harrogate, but not enough people from out of town know about it, yet.

Harrogate has no traffic free connection to Sustran's National Cycle Network. The nearest place you  can get on it is Spofforth. From there you can get yourself to Wetherby and on to York with barely the sniff of a car. To get to Spoforth at the moment though is back roads and a scary crossing of the main road.  Harrogate to its East is an island surrounded by a sea of cars. So kids and families don't ride to Spofforth and on to Wetherby and nobody really comes that way into town by bike.

What if the Tour's legacy was to link the excellent and much loved Nidderdale Greenway to the national cycle network at Spofforth? Then a family would have a choice of places to ride from Harrogate, west to the Dales, East to York. Bettter still folk could ride their bikes into Harrogate, stay a bit wander round the town, spend some money, maybe stop for the night (cyclists are hungry and thirsty and need places to sleep.) and then on to Ripley, eat ice cream  and on into the Dales. This is eco tourism gold and we have a winning ticket in the shape of the tour with which to make it happen.

Lets take the vision a step further. What if we got it open for next July? Folk could cycle in for the tour. How cool and bike friendly would Harrogate look? We would have shown that not only can we stage a major international cycling event but that we can get everyone in and out too.

What if whilst we were at it, we linked in the showground and put some cycle hire places in Wetherby and in town? We could help sort out the congestion problem for Yorkshire Show week. We could park some of them in Wetherby at the race course. Offer them a few quid off the ticket price and let them ride down the Tour De France cycle route into Harrogate.

We need some people to get behind this idea. We need councillors and the press to champion this. We could show Harrogate in the best possible light and build a Legacy that we can all be proud of and can all benefit from, but if we don't all want it. If we don't all make it happen. We just get Cav and Wiggo for a couple of hours and memories of when the circus came to town.

Show me the money

I put a freedom of information request into North Yorkshire County Council about the 143 grand of Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) money that should have been spent in the year to this April.

Here is what they came back with...

This is what should have been spent and on what

Project	Programme 12/13 (£k)
Area 3 – Harrogate Town Centre	60
Radial 2 – A661 Wetherby Road Corridor	33
Cross Cutting Measures	50
Total	143

Here is what I got back as a statement of what was spent

Project	Project Element	Total Expenditure (£k)
Area 3 – Harrogate Town Centre	Cycling Infrastructure	19.988
	Cycle Storage	1.995
	Pedestrian Links	5.005
	Visitor Information	11.364
Radial 2 – A661 Wetherby Road Corridor	Cycle links to the Great Yorkshire Showground	13.004
	Travel Information for exhibition venues	19.184
Cross Cutting Measures	Bus pre-emption at traffic signals	48.950
	Cycle map	0.100
Deferral agreed with Department for Transport		22.474
Total		142.064

So your County Council transport department has money to spend on your behalf and hasn't bothered to do this. Out of 140k they were supposed to spend they failed to spend 22k. Should you be worried? Well thats 15% of what is available. If you want better cycling infrastructure and you are being told there is no money you should be. I have raised this issue with a few councillors but so far nobody seems interested. 

How should you vote tomorrow? Well that is entirely up to you but the current administration would claim to support sustainable transport but in practice they don't always. Lets see how they do in this financial year when there is much more money to spend.

Nice to see you, to see you NICE

We repeatedly lobbied Harrogate hospital this year to ask them to encourage cycling for their staff. We offered our help. They did nothing. In fact they never really answered our letters at all. Indifference would be a fair description of the response we got.

North Yorkshire County Council have no plan in place to develop cycle infrastructure, have no cycle officer, spend no money on adult cycle training and have refused all the offers we have made to work with them to address these issues. They have just removed the only forum for consulting with local cyclists.

Wouldn't it be ironic if a respected and influential national body issued guidance that said the NHS and Local authorities should actively work to promote cycling? That these kinds of exercise are some of the best ways of reducing heart disease. Imagine if they said not exercising enough is as bad for you as smoking? Try and think how it would be if they said that transport planners and health promoters at local level should always consider cycling and walking in the decisions they make?

Just think how it would be if they said that a multi agency integrated approach is required?

...requires action on many fronts – and by many different sectors. A range of issues have to be addressed, including environmental, social, financial and personal factors.

What if they specifically said that better cycling infrastructure is part of the solution?

...measures to reduce road dangers and to reallocate road space to create a more supportive environment.

How would it be If they said that this was urgent and should happen now? That if we reached cycling levels like Denmark and the Netherlands we would save the NHS billions?

Finally if your mind can hold the idea, what if they said that they have multiple pieces of data that show that this action will work and that is why they are making this recommendation?

Well that just happened and a whole lot more. The NICE people who make evidence based recommendations about the safety and effectiveness of drugs and vaccinations, have now issued guidance that says this and more. They have said that we can save lives by getting people to walk and cycle. That 2/3 of the UK adult population are so inactive their health is at risk and that many people die because of their inactivity.

This is dynamite, Local government needs to do more to promote cycling. the NHS needs to do more to promote cycling, people like cycle Harrogate need to do more do promote cycling.

Well look we are trying to do our bit for free and with vigour but we are keen amateurs  We are a few people who speak for a few hundred more. We are asking for change. We are asking to work with local government and local agencies, we want to help, not to spend our time whinging at you, but we need dialogue and discussion not the door slamming in our face. Thus far we have been treated like the disease rather than part of the cure.

Are you doing all you should to promote and make simple daily cycling North Yorkshire County Council transport department? Could we help?

Are you doing all you should to promote and encourage cycling Harrogate District Hospital? Could we Help?

Here is a link to the nice guidance
this is the press release
here is the supporting evidence

Support from a legend - record breaker Mike Hall talks to Cycle Harrogate

Mike Hall is quite an individual. Not only did he break the record for cycling round the world earlier this year but he supports our Cycle Officer campaign. 91 days to cycle round the world unsupported, some 18,000 and something miles that is pretty extraordinary. Oh and Mike is a Harrogate chap so he is a local legend to boot.

Somebody tipped me off that Mike had signed our petition and I got in touch in a hurry. Mike was good enough to answer a few questions and also publicly give his support to our campaign. Wow we have a celebrity endorsement, better keep going hard at it then then Mike would.

Here is what Mike had to say

Cycle Harrogate Mike you Broke the world record for cycling round the world which is an incredible achievement. Which person from your past or present influenced you the most whilst you were riding, or does all your strength come from within?

Mike Hall I suppose initially I was influenced by guys in mountain bike racing - particularly the guys that were racing 24 hour races solo, not stopping for any more than a couple of minutes at a time and lapping the circuit as fast as many of the relay teams. I'm now lucky enough to call most of those guys my friends and from there my horizons widened when I learned more about the big unsupported mountain bike races like the Tour Divide - a 2745 mile off-road race down the continental divide from Canada to Mexico and guys like Matthew Lee, 5 time winner would complete the journey in around 17 days with no outside support and carrying all their equipment. When I did the race in 2011 it taught me how to pack my bike superlight, do with out all but the essentials that I could ride long miles day after day over big mountain passes. It was those skills and knowledge I took to the World Cycle Race. When I was speculating on what could be achieved I thought of the achievements of Tommy Godwin. He showed that mileages of over 200 miles a day were humanly possible over a much longer period. I already knew I could do big distances for 2-3 weeks but it was what he and a few other pioneering others had done all those years ago, that gave me the confidence to keep it up for much longer. Another rider I often thought of on the ride was Tom Simpson who, despite the tragedy of his story, will always be an inspiration. 

CH Mike you signed our petition for a cycle officer for North Yorkshire and thank you very much, but why do you think a North Yorkshire County Council Cycling officer is important for cyclists in Harrogate and the county?

MH The recent summer of sporting success, particularly in cycling, along with the general trend and incentives for people to adopt more sustainable transport methods nationally mean that more and more people are either picking up bikes these days or thinking about it. That's a great thing for peoples health, reducing congestion and meeting environmental targets. Without appropriate representation, planning and infrastructure for the increased number of cyclists on the road, however, we risk this being a short term thing and we also fail to protect their safety whilst they are attempting to use a road system which is designed predominantly around motor vehicles. 

CH Elite cycling has been in the news a lot recently with the the Tour de France, the Olympics and your epic ride. What single thing could UK government do to improve the cycling experience for everyday cyclists?

MH I'm not sure I know what the biggest thing that would benefit the most cyclists is but I think the biggest thing the UK Government can do for me personally as a cyclist and probably many others is tackle the social issues of conflict among road users in an increasingly congested traffic system which is experiencing a surge in the population of cyclists. Cyclists are vulnerable road users yet there appears to be an increasing amount of animosity directed towards them in the media and on the roads, by motorists wishing harm to them. I fear that a 'them and us' culture is being fostered on the roads and in the press, between motorists and cyclists, rather than one of co-operation, mutual respect and sharing the road. As a cyclist it makes me worry that my safety could be willfully disregarded by other road users.

If you want to know more about Mike's ride this is a pretty nice article

or you can visit his website normallyaspiratedhuman.com

and this is another cycle based cause he supports Cycle a Difference

Falling on deaf ears, 25% there and creating an NYCC Cycling Policy

I went and spoke at the council area committee meeting at the Cairn Hotel on Thursday morning. That was a first from a lifetime experience point of view. I had asked to talk about our cycle officer campaign, you get allocated 3 minutes and told to speak up and use the microphone as some of the councillors are hard of hearing (I'm not making this up).

Before I had my go Gia Margolis spoke with eloquence and passion about the impending car crash (pun intended) that appears to be the planned junction re-design for the new M & S store on Leeds Rd. With fairly customary vigour and massive sustainable indifference, North Yorkshire Highways seem to have ignored the needs of cyclists and pedestrians almost totally. The existing busy junction will be replaced by three lanes of traffic heading into town making life for anyone not in a car essentially worse. Pavements will be narrowed in places, verges removed. Another opportunity to add cycle provision squandered on the altar of "congestion management". Although it does seem that this one may be a work in progress, a few councillors seemed really unhappy about how the cards have been dealt, we shall have to wait and see.

Anyway my three minutes arrived. I mentioned the huge support from the local cycle community. I mentioned the fiasco over Knaresborough Rd and the fact we had complained about the process and our complaint had been upheld. Oh I forgot to mention that the council's complaints people found the way it dealt with us over Knaresborough road was wrong. At least the complaints procedure seems fit for purpose, not really the effect we were hoping for though. Finally I talked about Beryl Burton, five times world champion and inspiration for a cycleway in her name form Knaresborough to Harrogate that is now steadily falling to ruin as nobody in local government can be bothered to spend a day and a few thousand quid fixing it. I said we should be proud of our great local sports people and her memory deserved better treatment.

Now it wasn't my best three minutes of public speaking but I'm told I was pretty clear. Then I got a prepared response from a council wonk which I will now summarise. "No cycling officer"

So there you go 400 people want a Cycle Officer to help work for sustainable transport in Harrogate and North Yorkshire and the transport department don't. Except we don't feel like giving in just yet, at 1600 signatures we get a debate on a cycle officer. I think its time to up the pressure and get more people to sign, this one is still winnable  I also think  after doing my homework that their are reasons why its easy for North Yorkshire Council to say no to a cycle officer, allow me to explain without hopefully boring you to death. Hold tight I may use statistics in the next section.

Transport policy in North Yorkshire is governed by what is called the Local Transport Plan (LTP) we currently have one that is running from 2011 to 2016. In it cycling is mentioned 21 times but then it is a 177 page document, so not exactly a pivotal role in the plan.

It talks about encouraging cycling but only once is there a specific mention of making any physical infrastructure improvements for cyclists and then it is behind other provision for pedestrians in a hierarchy of action. However there is a great deal about spending money and improving major A roads.  Basically I think the Council's transport department have no effective policy obligation to do anything to provide for cyclists and that is why we are hitting a brick wall when we ask. I don't buy the money argument though, if there is enough for making some roads for cars you could spend a bit on bikes.

In my view Harrogate and Knaresborugh appear to be a special case within North Yorkshire. The population of Knaresborough and Harrogate is about 91,000, the population of the whole of North Yorkshire  about 600,000. We may be geographically insignificant, but we are very dense from a people point of view. With the possible exception of Scarborough, Harrogate and Knaresborough are the two places in North Yorkshire where large scale urban cycle provision makes sense. Now if you are still with me and not glazing over.

Harrogate especially has a large urban population and is relatively small as towns go. Its a great place to cycle round in principle. Trouble is NYCC have a transport policy aimed for most part at the sparsely populated county as a whole, where car use and provision of  car friendly roads makes good sense for daily travel. Even when they accept that 62% of their population live in towns these towns are at best half the size of Harrogate and most way smaller. Harrogate is the elephant in the room. We need a policy for Harrogate that actively champions bikes, buses and traffic calming rather than seeing it as an unattainable ideal or as an irrelevance. Sorry I know this is dull, keep going your doing well.

So time I think to set about getting NYCC to take a fresh and critical look at its current transport plan. It is poorly serving the needs of the residents of Harrogate from a congestion, health and quality of life point of view. We need a local transport plan that contains commitments to do rather more than "promote" cycling. It needs to see the development of urban cycling in its congested town to be a crucial tool to ease the congestion and pollution that it admits is a big problem.  A problem that the improving, widening and sometimes silly re-lining of its current road network has so far failed to do, things are still getting worse not better at the moment. Build roads better suited to car use and you get more car use wow, what a surprise that is. This has been known for years, but it still seems to form the basis of North Yorkshire's transport policy. I know, I know will he never finish this post?

I think the next developments for Cycle Harrogate are to keep the pressure up for a cycle officer but even if and when one is appointed they will only carry out current car-centric policy more effectively. What we need is to work top down to try and change the policy and for that we need some people with real clout batting for us. Any Ideas?  I have a couple, more soon.

On Revolution and Beryl in Peril

I went to the Revolution series cycle racing at the Manchester Velodrome on Saturday night, it was great. Ed Clancy was on imperious form and he looked like a different species when he was lapping the boards compared to the other riders who were all world class, It was well worth seeing. The highlight was his lone effort to chase down a breakaway in the points race. With half a lap to go he was 40 metres down and it looked impossible but he road the leader down to take the win. I would recommend you go but the series is sold out this Winter, perhaps we really are starting to warm to cycling as a nation?

As I was wandering around the edges of the track with a restless four year old, I came across a shrine to Beryl Burton. I knew of her because she has a cycleway named after her from near my house to Knaresborough. What I didn't know just how good she was she was, like a later day Victoria Pendleton but more versatile. Five times world champion and she was a mean time trialler too. all this in the days before the UK had one of the most successful sporting cycling setups the world has ever seen. She rode for Knaresborough cycle club in her later life and that why the cycleway is where it is.

Beryl's Shrine

A while back we started chasing NYCC to try and get the cycleway repaired as it in a right old mess. It is pot holed and rutted and on a road bike it not really ridable at the moment. Now Beryl never rode a mountain bike they hadn't be invented when she was in her prime, but if you want to follow her trail at the moment thats my tip. Surely the memory of one of the world's greatest cyclists with a local connection deserves better than a rutted track that looks un-loved and un-cared for?

Thats just another little reason why we need a cycle officer, we need somebody in local government who cares about these things so we can help generate the next generation of Beryl Burton's. I'm talking at a local council meeting on Thursday. I will tell them about the petition, about the support we have from local cyclists, about how they are failing to do right by sustainable transport in Harrogate at the moment and I will tell them that Beryl is in peril.

Unaccustomed as I am

On Thursday I am going to talk at the Council  area meeting at the Cairn Hotel. I will tell them about the petition and mention all your names one by one. Actually I won't as you only get three minutes, so I  had better keep it short and sweet. Anyway suffice to say I will put the arguments across and point out that we represent a large constituency of Harrogate cyclists and can we have a Cycle officer please?

Hopefully all this lobbying will lead somewhere.

DEMANDING - petitioning North Yorkshire County Council for a Cycle Officer

A while back I met somebody from the transport department at North Yorkshire County Council. She said that they didn't do more for cyclists as the demand wasn't there. A fortnight ago we started a petition to ask NYCC to employ a cycle officer.  We now have nearly 300 people signed up, more probably by the time you read this. If we can get 1605 signatures the council have to debate our suggestion rather than fob us off with platitudes as they do at the moment. The same women said anyone could sign a petition but 38 degrees have shown how effective these sort of campaigns can be.

We have had some great support from amongst others Wheel Easy, The Harrogate Cycling Group, Boneshakers, Ride Harrogate Harrogate Nova, The Big Red Bike Co and the Cappucino Cycling Club, not to mention the people that have signed up via twitter and facebook.

All these organisations have asked their members to get behind this campaign and for the first time I think we are now seeing that the women from the council was wrong. It seems that there is consderable demand for better cycling infrastructure and advocacy from local government in Harrogate and North Yorkshire. It also seems that this demand is much bigger than they claim and that we know they are dragging their heels in pushing forward a sustainable transport agenda as they say they want to.

There is still a mini mountain to climb and we need to keep the momentum up but a good start. If anyone out there knows how we can raise the profile of the campaign?  Please get in touch at cyclehgt@gmail.com we need all the help we can get.

If you haven't signed our petition and you think a cycling officer would be tax money well spent here is a link to the petition.

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.

Big Brother loves you

So according to the Woman From the Council the full 70 or so metres of cycleway will have been painted on the ground on Knaresborough Rd last night and will be drying even as I write. We will go and have a look at it when we have nothing better to do.  As we are heading over to Selby on the bikes this morning to use a Sustrans route  based around the solar system which looks great, we do have something better to do, it might be a while before we can report back.

Oh and just found this quote on the web on NYCC's website. Having dealt with them over Knaresborough Road we would argue that this is not true or as George Orwell would put it Doublethink.

"The County Council is committed to promoting cycling as an alternative mode of travel to the car for short trips or as part of longer journeys."