YP Letters: Planners unrealistic about benefits of rail link to Green Hammerton

I AM both shocked and disheartened to hear that Green Hammerton is Harrogate Borough Council’s preferred site for a 3,000 house development.

As a resident, I am amused that so much emphasis on the benefits of “Great Hammerton” lie with the rail link.

We all know that the current single track rail line operates only one train an hour, between York and Harrogate, and there’s much talk that this link will be upgraded in the future to a dual line.

Forgive me for sounding sceptical, but as this would require widening or building a new viaduct over the River Nidd in Knaresborough and knocking down a lot of houses in Starbeck to accommodate an extra line, it seems rather implausible short term. Nevertheless, according to the planners, it’s going to happen and they have “bigged” it up and made it all sound great. But my question is “Would it actually help?”

The majority of residents, and indeed none of my neighbours or friends in the village, currently use the train or limited bus services, because they don’t actually work in York, Harrogate or Leeds.

With the exception of shops, restaurants and hotels, most well paid jobs nowadays are located on industrial estates well out of town and even on the outskirts of villages. So what good is the promise of a better rail link, if you work for example, on Clifton Moor, Marston Moor or Sandbeck Industrial Estates? Even if you work at York Hospital, you’d be one mile away from work when you alight the train at York Station. It is therefore completely unrealistic to believe that any new residents would manage successfully “out in the sticks” without a car.

As a typical mother of three, I collect my children from school (in the car, like countless others who live here). We are all under pressure, whizzing back from work, food shopping, exercising, helping elderly parents, appointments, etc. No mother ever wants to be late to collect her child or children – it’s the ultimate fail.

Even after this, I am hastily feeding them, then loading them back into the car to shuttle them to activities all over the region during rush hour traffic four nights a week. None of these activities come close to any train station on the York to Harrogate line.

Realistically, an extra 6,000 cars are all going to feed straight onto the A59.

These planners can all “talk the talk” but there’s not many people in North Yorkshire who have the time or inclination to “train it, bus it and walk”!