North Yorkshire County Council has taken the first steps in a bid for £10 million of extra Government funding for transport improvements in the county, including the provision of Park and Ride sites and services in Whitby and Harrogate.
The County Council is allowed to lead on up to two bids to the Department for Transport for additional funding to deliver packages of transport related schemes to support economic growth while reducing carbon emissions.
Following discussions with the National Parks, district councils and voluntary organisations the county council’s Executive has selected two packages of schemes from the many suggestions received to submit to the DfT’s Local Sustainable Transport Fund
The two schemes, a Harrogate Sustainable Transport Package and an East Coast Tourist Economy Package, both include the provision of Park and Ride sites and services, in Harrogate and in Whitby. Full details are still being developed but the packages will focus on better and easier travel as well as improving and promoting public transport and other alternatives to private cars.
The East Coast package is also likely to include different ways of letting day visitors to Scarborough know when there is congestion on the main roads to encourage them to stagger their journeys.
County Councillor Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire’s Executive Member for Highways said the two packages represented the best chance of attracting this extra funding into the county.
He said: “This is the first step in the process. We now need to develop the packages in more detail before submitting the final bid to the Department for Transport next February.
“If the bids are successful, and only if they are successful, we will start to deliver the proposals later in 2012 with the packages being completed by March 2015.
“Unfortunately if the bids are not successful the County Council does not have other funding available to deliver them, especially the Park and Ride sites, though we will continue to look for funding wherever possible.”
