Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Your issue of November 8 was fascinating. As one who lived in and near York for 20 years, touched by the beauty of this lovely city dominated by the compassionate symbol of the Minster, I was impressed as always as I read of the candour and directness of the way things are done. I read of three schoolgirls from Queen Anne Grammar School who objected to the proposed inner ring road because they were still human enough to be worried about noise, danger to life, pollution, unnecessary human misery, and the destruction of beauty and of people’s homes. I read of people sick and ill with worry and of many others who feel that an outer ring road is quite enough for the moment, thank you. I read of York’s poor social services, its failure to care for homeless people – of how cities like York are coping with folk in trouble. I read of how the appropriate council committee had approved estimates of more than £20m for roadworks, including money for the road still under discussion at a public inquiry; and I noted the provision of two multi-storey car parks, at a cost of over £1m. May I make a suggestion? I am sure that York and its leaders wish to be honest. It would therefore be quite splendid if a giant model car could be raised at public expense in some public square: should this be thought modest, a continental-type lorry with trailer in solid gold might form the basis of a great public statue. Civic leaders, and heads of city companies, could make majestic pilgrimages and hold ceremonies in full regalia round this centre of worship. Pensioners and artisans might be invited to attend these times of adoration and thanksgiving to see how their money has been spent, and to receive replicas as a comfort in their old age. It might be quite a good idea to knock down a school or a hospital in order to find a really good site. Then at last we shall know the One we all serve.

Comment

Comment

I believe the Labour Party was running the council at the time, but the information isn’t readily available. R.T.H./Roy Stevens went to Lewes Grammar and following a first in English at Cambridge (1947) trained teachers at St John’s College York) and by 1959 in the Faculty of Arts at Leeds University – by the late 60s he is recorded as teaching English in the Department of Education. I fear he is no longer with us, but hope that whoever owns the rights to the letter won’t object to it appearing here.

My impression is that the council, supported by the Yorkshire Evening Press, and the Conservative government regarded the inquiry (17 October – 6 December 1972) as a sham. The only record of proceedings is in clearly biased reporting in the YEP (no official transcript was made!), the council’s highly-paid QC Frank Layfield appears hubristically arrogant in exchanges with objectors, and Inspector Dahl’s report is very difficult to get hold of – I haven’t seen it. But approval for the scheme, granted under the Tories, was reversed under the new Labour government in early 1975:

Mr Crosland, Secretary of State for the Environment, has taken the unusual step of reversing the recommendation of his inspector and refused permission for a new inner ring road at York. The decision will be greeted as an important victory for conservationists, particularly in historic towns, and a significant change of direction by the Department of the Environment. The department, though edging perceptibly towards policies of traffic restraint and improved public transport, has not hitherto formally ruled that a new urban trunk road, described by the inspector after a 1972 inquiry as “essential for the well-being of the city centre and its conservation”, will not be permitted until every alternative avenue has been explored. The York inner ring road, circling the minster and old city walls, would have cost about £10m at 1972 prices and destroyed several hundred homes. In his letter to the North Yorkshire County Council Mr Crosland says he is not convinced that all possible alternative ways of solving the traffic problem in the city centre had been explored and he thinks it necessary to explore more deeply further measures of traffic management and restraint and greater use of public transport. His attitude apparently is, that the view has been expressed with such force in recent years that traffic growth should be excluded from city centres, particularly historic ones, that public policy should bow to it, at least to the extent of seeing what happens over the next five years, then perhaps reviewing the situation again (Baily 1975/02/05).

Crosland doubled down a couple of weeks later (Young 1975/02/21). Why did he stop it? He and others of compatible bent had spent time in opposition thinking about transport policy, but I haven’t yet seen their report in Socialist Commentary (Huckfield 1975/04). However, in her memoir Susan Crosland notes that “it was rare when he didn’t manage to carve out some time to do exactly what he liked in whatever part of the world he was. Had the regional visit included York, Pevsner would have been in his dispatch case, the Minster his treat.” And:

The aim was to produce a practical, socialist transport policy. Priority was to be switched away from building more motorways mostly used by better-off business travellers. Railway passengers would have to pay more: he wanted to move away from the regressive policy of subsidising the better-off who could afford to live in country comfort and commute to London. More money was to be allocated to coach and to local bus services. Road tax would be abolished and replaced with higher petrol tax, on the principle that working people who use their cars largely for weekend family visits should not have to pay the same tax as those who use the roads daily (Crosland 1983).

The lack of any remotely adequate written record means I am unable to date an entry here for the submission of Geoff Beacon – objector 18 of hundreds – to the inquiry, which is apparently summarised in John Dahl’s report in paragraphs 144-155 and referred to again in paragraph 293 – “At the inquiry I have heard no objector put forward any workable alternative bar that of drastic traffic suppression.” Beacon called for “drastic traffic suppression” for the “Poppleton parasites”:

Analysis & Alternative strategy
2.0 The problem is that of designing an environment for people, who occupy a few square feet and need tens of square feet to move (2.0/1), which can also accommodate a large number of motor cars, which occupy hundreds of square feet (2.0/2) and need thousands of square feet to move(2.0/3). This has consequences for housing design (2.0/4) and for urban form (2.0/5). There are also other characteristics of motor cars which damage the local environment so that a large number of them in an urban setting has the effect of encouraging people to spread out spatially in trying to avoid the nuisances of heavy traffic (2.0/6).

2.1 The town designed and developed without the motor car has many advantages for people with a low vehicle use (2.1/1) and because they do not require large areas of transportation space (and there is less need to withdraw from traffic nuisance) they can be denser than towns developed for mass motor car transport for the same environmental standard.(2.1/1a). This brings, of itself, many advantages of accessibility of urban facilities (2.1/2). Further, these facilities can be grouped together in such a way to increase accessibility over that possible with the high vehicle use of mass motor car transport after the simple density effect has been discounted. (2.1/3)

2.2 Within a low vehicle usage town, whilst they are in a minority, individuals with a high vehicle use can benefit from the facilities generated by the low vehicle use structure (2.2/1) as long as they do not have to bear their external costs. Since, at present, this is the case, when the number of people with high vehicle use increases within such a town, the town is gradually reshaped to become one more suited to high vehicle use (2.2/2). This reshaping is a very painful process (2.2/3) and the public are not all happy with the end result (2.2/4) and a very high cost in resources will have been paid (2.2/5).

2.3 There is the following important point to note: the two types of town never exist simultaneously; one being created from the other by external costs of people with high vehicle use, who paracitically use the facilities of the pedestrian town whilst helping to destroy them (2.3/1). Thus the public is never presented with a choice between a low vehicle use town with all its facilities and a high vehicle use town with the facilities it can provide.

2.4 Those people that realise that this is happening are often seduced into high vehicle use (at the expense of others (2.4/1)) admitting their part in the decay of the low vehicle use town, not being able to resist the lure of their own private gain when they see others grabbing their share. Those people who are in ignorance of the process simply so things which are to their own personal advantage without considering the wider consequences.

2.5 In York’s case there is an enormous reduction in the quality of life in the inner residential areas (2.5/0) due to heavy traffic. A considerable proportion of high vehicle use comes from the higher social and income groups, many of whom live outside the city and commute to York in their cars, thus imposing enormous external costs (2.5/!). There is also a considerable number of people aspiring to achieve a cheaper version of this suburban dream (2.5/2). I often wonder whether these people, in particular, are aware of the burden they place on the low vehicle use groups. York suffers from the mentality which I really must sadly call that of the Poppleton parasite and the aspiring Poppleton Parasite.

2.6 If a true choice were given between high vehicle use and all the consequences of its urban form and low vehicle use and the consequences of its urban form some will choose one, others the other. (2.6/1). The difficulty of providing for both of these groups in one homogeneous structure leads me to suggest a policy of separate spatial development.

2.7 In York, this policy could be effected by designating certain areas as areas of low vehicle use. These areas would, at first, probably be some of the older residential areas, which were built for low vehicle use. At present vehicle ownership is fairly low in these areas, especially amongst the stable population (2.7/1). In these areas, vehicle use, particularly of the private motor car, would be severely restricted; the justification for this being the high external cost of vehicle use in these areas (2.2/3). In other areas, more suited to high vehicle use, the external costs being lower, there would be less need for restrictions.

2.8 In this situation, if the tendency were towards an increase in vehicle use as a whole (2.8/1), then we should try to accommodate this change by changing low use areas to high use areas as they come up for natural redevelopment (2.8/2). This would also have the advantage of preventing the premature decay of some of the environment and housing stock of York’s older residential areas.

2.9 This leaves the problem of treating those facilities which are jointly used by high vehicle use and low vehicle use groups. In this case it probably best to resort to cost-benefit analysis techniques (which must be used with great caution (2.9/1) to identify those activities such as commuter motoring, whose external costs exceed their net private benefits (2.9/2). This could be done by physical restraints, such as parking restrictions, or by making the external costs into private ones by some form of pricing (2.9/3).

2.10 I would, however, like to emphasise that many of the facilities generated by the accessibility within York depend on many people travelling to them using public transport, bikes or foot and whatever cost benefit analysis indicates we should (probably) not let the dispersive effect of the motor destroy them (2.10/1).

(Beacon 2017/08/13)

Contributions before the inquiry were also made inter alia by the distinguished biologist J. Ramsey Bronk (Bronk 1971/05/20), by the town planner Lionel Brett (Esher 1972/09/15), and by William Oddie (not THAT one), secretary of the Ancient Monuments Society.

York Press retrospective

Several links re the ring road scheme 40 years before: 1, 2.

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Original

Your issue of November 8 was fascinating. As one who lived in and near York for 20 years, touched by the beauty of this lovely city dominated by the compassionate symbol of the Minster, I was impressed as always as I read of the candour and directness of the way things are done.

I read of three schoolgirls from Queen Anne Grammar School who objected to the proposed inner ring road because they were still human enough to be worried about noise, danger to life, pollution, unnecessary human misery, and the destruction of beauty and of people’s homes.

I read of people sick and ill with worry and of many others who feel that an outer ring road is quite enough for the moment, thank you.

I read of York’s poor social services, its failure to care for homeless people – of how cities like York are coping with folk in trouble: and I remembered a recent report which revealed the inadequacies of many of York’s caring welfare services.

I turned the pages, and read of how the appropriate council committee had approved estimates of more than £20m. for road works, including money for the road still under discussion at a public inquiry; and I noted the provision of two multi-storey car parks, at a cost of over £1m.

May I make a suggestion? I am sure that York and its leaders wish to be quite honest. It would therefore be quite splendid if a giant model car could be raised at public expense in some public square: should this be thought modest, a continental-type lorry with trailer in solid gold might form the basis of a great public statue. Civic leaders, and heads of city companies, could make majestic pilgrimages and hold ceremonies in full regalia round this centre of worship.

Pensioners and artisans might be invited to attend these times of adoration and thanksgiving to see how their money has been spent, and to receive replicas as a comfort in their old age. It might be quite a good idea to knock down a school or a hospital in order to find a really good site.

Then at last we shall know the One we all serve.

R.T.H. Stevens
3 Crossfield Close,
Oxenhope,
Keighley

398 words.

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• 1974–1979 Labour government (1) ·
• A1237 road (1) ·
• Anthony Crosland (3) ·
• Car (3) ·
• City of York Council (1) ·
• City of York (1) ·
• Clifton, York (5) ·
• Cult image (1) ·
• Frank Layfield (1) ·
• Geoffrey Rippon (1) ·
• Golden calf (1) ·
• Heath ministry (4) ·
• Idolatry (1) ·
• J. Ramsey Bronk (1) ·
• Labour Party (UK) (17) ·
• Leeds Inner Ring Road (1) ·
• Lionel Brett, 4th Viscount Esher (1) ·
• Lorry (1) ·
• Motonormativity (1) ·
• Nether Poppleton (2) ·
• Peter Walker, Baron Walker of Worcester (1) ·
• Public inquiry (1) ·
• 📌Queen Anne Grammar School (1), girls state school in York, opened 1906 as the Municipal Secondary School for Girls in Brook Street, moved to new site on Queen Anne's Road, Clifton in 1909, name changed 1920, co-educational comprehensive in 1985, closed 2000, St Olave's School moved to the site in 2001 ·
• Road church (1) ·
• Road transport (13) ·
• Satire (3) ·
• Secretary of State for the Environment (1) ·
• The Press (York) (1), local daily newspaper for North and East Yorkshire, called the Yorkshire Evening Press 1882-2004 ·
• Wilson, Harold (1916-1995) (4), Huddersfield-born prime minister (1964-70, 1974-76), leader of the Labour Party (1963-76), MP (1945-83) ·
• 📌York Minster (27) ·
• York St John University (1) ·
• York city walls (9) ·
• York railway station (2) ·
• 📌York (164) ·

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