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24
Sept
‘Incredibly frustrating’: Mayor criticises delay in cameras at Harrogate school safety scheme
The Mayor of York and North Yorkshire has criticised delays in installing a automatic number plate recognition cameras at a car free zone outside a Harrogate school.
Beechwood Grove, which leads to 360-pupil Oatlands Junior School, is the only School Streets initiative in North Yorkshire.
The scheme, which bans cars from 8.30am to 9am and from 3pm to 3.45pm on schooldays, was introduced after a pupil was taken to hospital following a collision on the street in 2023.
However, Hazel Peacock, who led the campaign for the car-free zone, said the scheme was under threat due to a lack of automatic number plate recognition cameras to monitor and enforce the initiative.
North Yorkshire Council said that school street sites, including the one at Oatlands School, would be a contender for ANPR once the authority had completed a trial at a site in Gowthorpe in Selby.
Mayor David Skaith and Rhiannon Letman-Wade, Active Travel Commissioner for York and North Yorkshire, during an active travel fund launch at the school street scheme in Harrogate.
The situation has led to concern that the scheme in Harrogate may be in danger of collapse.
During a phone-in on BBC Radio York yesterday, David Skaith, Labour mayor of the region, said the situation made him “quite angry”.
Mr Skaith, who is supporter of the scheme at Oatlands and was responding to an on-air question from Ms Peacock, said he thought the street was a “very obvious” place to trial the ANPR cameras.
He said:
I have been incredibly frustrated with this. I think this is when I get quite angry, if I’m being honest with you.
The emphasis on road safety and providing our roads to be safe for all users, particularly for our young children and particularly around school times to make it safer and easier for people to move around, has got to be a priority for everyone in the region.
The fact that North Yorkshire have taken two years to implement this camera and when it is potentially coming in it is going to a completely different area to where an incredibly successful trial has already going on and has seen great results, I just do not understand their thinking.
The council previously said the Selby scheme was due to be up and running in early 2027 — a delay from summer this year.
Hazel Peacock
However, Ms Peacock said campaigners, parents and residents were now starting to become concerned over the progress being made at Beechwood Grove.
She told a Harrogate and Knaresborough area constituency committee:
With years of delay, inaction nor explanation, we are asking why the trial cannot be switched from a junction at Selby to the school street at Oatlands Junior School attended by 360 school children aged seven to 11 every single school day?
The council said previously that it had made no commitment over enforcement at Oatlands School.
However, it added that school street sites, including the one at Oatlands School, would be a contender for ANPR once the authority had completed its trial in Selby.
It said:
North Yorkshire Council have said that school streets sites will be contenders for the introduction of this sort of enforcement. But at no point has North Yorkshire Council ever made a commitment or promise to ANPR enforcement at Oatlands School.
Given the ongoing trial, we do not have a timeline for enforcement introduction at Oatlands School. We are engaging with the York and North Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority on the potential for the combined authority to fund camera installations at school street sites in North Yorkshire including Oatlands.
As these discussions are ongoing, I cannot provide any further reassurance or timescales at this stage. The traffic engineering team are actively pursuing camera funding options with the combined authority and should money become available we will look to introduce the cameras at the earliest opportunity with any lessons learned from the Gowthorpe site.
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