'Petrified' traders may launch another legal challenge to controversial £11.2 million Harrogate Gateway project

Petrified Harrogate traders may still launch a new appeal over the controversial £11.2 million Gateway project which some readers have dubbed the “biggest waste of money in the town’s history”.

Set up in 2019 to combat the challenges to the town’s high street sector, Independent Harrogate says town centre businesses are "petrified" of the likely impact of construction work in the Station Parade area should the plan be implemented by North Yorkshire Council.

Although the government-funded scheme has been watered down over the last three years, they say the lengthy disruption involved would damage business in Harrogate at precisely the wrong time. William Woods, who runs Woods Fine Linens, one of Harrogate’s long-established businesses, warned that, in this situation, the possibility of a new legal challenge to the Harrogate Gateway project could not be rejected.

"It’s difficult enough at the moment for businesses,” said Mr Woods, whose award-winning family business on Station Parade was established in 1895 and received a visit from Princes Anne three years ago.

"Shops and businesses tell me they petrified about what the results of the work for them.

"Whether there is going to be a further legal appeal is up in the air.

"It’s neither been ruled in, nor has it been ruled out.”

The revised version of the Harrogate Gateway scheme includes the redevelopment of One Arch and Station Square, improved traffic signals, a bus lane, a southbound cycle lane on Station Parade, new paving for pedestrians and cycle parking at Harrogate railway station.

There will also be improvements to traffic signals on the A61 at the junctions of King's Road and Ripon Road, and King's Road and Cheltenham Parade.

The ditching of the most contentious aspects in the original plans failed to placate groups like Independent Harrogate, though the courts have sided with North Yorkshire Council in the Gateway battle.

In March this year, the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal against the scheme by A & E Baines Ltd led by a Harrogate-based campaign group called Get Away.

In the judgment, the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier High Court ruling and rejected all three grounds of the appeal, confirming that North Yorkshire Council had acted entirely lawfully.

But leading Harrogate business leaders such as William Woods argue a “lack of detail” over what is left of Gateway means the town is unlikely to welcome any construction work.

"There’s a lack of clarity in what we have been told about the plans,” said Mr Woods, a member of the British Institute of Interior Designers.

"It’s all very vague.

"What is going to happen to the railway station area?

"What is going to happen to the One Arch?

"We have asked for the details but don’t know when we will get them.”

North Yorkshire Council has been awarded £38 million in total to deliver improvement schemes in Harrogate, Selby and Skipton which would provide more accessible, affordable and attractive greener transport options at existing transport hubs in these towns.

Despite the good intentions, Independent Harrogate says the town will not wear this most controversial of projects.

"There have been three consultations about Gateway and all three have shown a majority against it.

"All we are getting from North Yorkshire Council is a broad brush approach.

"We are frighteningly nervous about what is coming.”