Last week, two bridges over the river Nidd, one in Glasshouses and the other in Pateley Bridge, were closed at the same time. This created massive congestion on the narrow lanes in Upper Nidderdale, where there is often only room for a single vehicle. In Glasshouses the road was closed with no notice, either in the form of road signs or notification to residents. In Pateley Bridge, the road was closed and not even Area 6 highways knew of the closure.
Clearly this state of affairs is unsatisfactory. I know of other reports of closures that have not been conducted in what might be considered to have reasonable regard to our residents’ needs. In emergency circumstances there will be unavoidable inconvenience, but the case I have cited above was not an emergency and does not appear to be exceptional.
It seems that there are several organisations share responsibility for road closures, including Highways, Street Scene and the contractors themselves. But there does not seem to be an overarching policy with which we, as the representatives of residents, can hold council officers responsible. If there is such a policy I would be grateful for the sight of it and if not, I would be grateful if we could consider providing one.
Response from Cllr Malcolm Taylor
North Yorkshire Council operates a permitting scheme for all planned works in the highway, including footways. Network co-ordinators in the council's Street Works team review all requests and checks for other planned works in the area before agreeing a start and end date thus reducing the potential risk of any conflicts on nearby roads.
The congestion issue in Pateley Bridge was caused when Yorkshire Water works in Glasshouses, which should have been concluded on the Thursday 14 August, over-ran, resulting in this road remaining closed on the Friday 15 August until works were stopped at 12.43pm. Yorkshire Water should have applied to the Street Works team for an extension of their permit, but they did not follow the process and remained on the network.
In the meantime, the Street Works team had already provided a permit to NYH to complete a carriageway repair on the Friday 15 August, on the bridge, under a road closure. This was deliberately planned as Yorkshire Water should have been off the network on the 14 August, but the NYH team was not aware that the Yorkshire Water works had over-run when they closed the bridge. The road closure on Pateley bridge lasted between 9.15am to 11.09am on the Friday 15 August and as such there was a period of almost two hours where both roads were closed.
The Street Works team has already picked the overrun issue up with Yorkshire Water as they did not follow the permit extension process and this could result in a fine. The matter will also be raised with Yorkshire Water senior management at the next regular review meeting.
As you will appreciate there are high demands from utility companies and highways to be on the network to upgrade or maintain their assets but in the main the permitting process does work very well. This situation was caused by a lack of update from Yorkshire Water about their need to be on the network beyond their original permitted dates when plans had already been agreed for another nearby road to be closed.
Please extend my apologies for the impact this issue caused residents and visitors of Pateley Bridge and Glasshouses.