- The campaign group opposed to the Harrogate Station Gateway scheme responds to Freedom of Information Request investigation by Harrogate media channel
- New information highlights that North Yorkshire Council want to take £1m from their bus grant to pay for Gateway cost overruns
- And while Gateway was originally planned to be carbon negative, it will actually increase carbon emissions by 1,044 equivalent tonnes over its 60-year lifetime, requiring 2,088 mature trees to offset the increased emissions.
The Get Away campaign group has said it is astounded, but not surprised, by a ‘triple whammy’ of new revelations surrounding the troubled Harrogate Station Gateway scheme and renews its call for it to be scrapped.
The news comes at Get Away launches a legal challenge against Station Gateway in the High Court tomorrow (thur) and will argue that North Yorkshire Council’s failure to consider the wider impacts of the proposal and to consult fully with the public have rendered the TROs illegal.
Firstly, a recent Freedom of Information request by the Stray Ferret media channel to the Department for Transport which relates to correspondence between its officials and North Yorkshire Council, reveals damning new data about how much it will cost.
The response reveals that:
- Works will commence in April despite a legal challenge, which is being heard later this month
- The scheme’s benefit-cost ratio could be as low as 0.5-0.8 even though 1 or below is defined as poor value for money by the Department for Transport. The original business case assessed a benefit-cost ratio of 1.70.
- The primary consultant’s fee is £2,791,728, whereas the direct construction costs are just £4,830,000.
- The scheme’s total cost has risen to £12,549,449 from £12.1m
- Unexpected cost increases represent a high risk.
It has also come to the attention of the Get Away campaign that North Yorkshire Council wants to take £1m from Harrogate’s bus budget to help pay for cost overruns generated by the Gateway project.
In addition, while Gateway was originally planned to be carbon negative, Get Away has seen documents that show it will actually increase carbon emissions by 1,044 equivalent tonnes over its 60-year lifetime, requiring 2,088 mature trees to offset the increased emissions.
Says Steven Baines, spokesperson for the Get Away scheme: “It beggars belief that the council is completely going against the wishes of the majority of the local business community who oppose the scheme, even though its been flagged up it offers poor value for money and that there is a high risk of unexpected cost increases.
“In a way we shouldn’t be surprised as there has been inadequate consultation and no economic impact assessment undertaken.
“We’ve been saying it all along, and this is borne out by a survey of local businesses, that this scheme is not good for Harrogate and it’s particularly not good for traders in the centre of town. That’s why 91% have opposed it.”
David Waddington from Hornbeam Park Developments, said: “Not only does the council want to lumber us with a scheme nobody wants, but it appears that they intend to plunder the bus grant to help pay for it.
“I want to know whether NYC has obtained approval from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to syphon off a sizable chunk of the bus grant in this manner and how we have got into the ludicrous position that a project with a stated aim of improving bus journeys for the people of Harrogate will take much-needed public transport funding from them instead.
“Surely even NYC can see the irony of taking £1m out of funding for bus services and attempt to serve it up as improvements to public transport? And, given the terrible carbon impact of this scheme, how it can be justified on environmental grounds is beyond me. If this does not scream greenwashing, I don’t know what does.”
Added Waddington: “In light of all these new revelations, serious questions now need to be asked of the Department for Transport and North Yorkshire Council. Why have costs risen when the scheme has been descoped? Why has the Council not been transparent about the cost-benefit value and high risk of unexpected cost increases? How can the council justify the primary consultant’s costs being more than half of the direct construction costs?
“And why isn’t the Department of Transport not seriously questioning the scheme given now what we know, and at a time when the government is putting all departmental spending under huge scrutiny?”
Data also recently obtained by the Get Away group from North Yorkshire Council through another FOI request shows that business fortunes in the town centre have hardly improved since the pandemic which brought about economic turmoil across the country. In 2022 at the height of coronavirus some 28% of properties were empty whilst two years later, nearly a quarter of all properties are still empty.
At the time of this data release David Waddington said: “The council’s empty promises that this scheme will be good for the town will regrettably just lead to more empty businesses in the town centre and we’ll be back to a situation worse than we saw during the pandemic.
“The bottom line is that whilst the council says that we cannot afford to miss out on the funding that is backing this scheme, the reality is the business community cannot afford for it to progress otherwise they will be on their knees and the centre will become a ghost town.”
The recent Get Away campaign group survey of nearly 200 traders revealed that 91% were against the scheme. Major concerns raised by the business community include uncertainty about the impact it will have on local trade, lack of consultation and clarity over what the final scheme will look like, disruption during the construction works and lack of evidence that Station Gateway would have a positive impact for Harrogate.
Also 94% of respondents said the Gateway plans would not benefit local people and visitors while a similar number (93%) doubted that it would benefit the local economy.
