Harrogate has 89 streets on the council's lane rental list, more than any town in North Yorkshire. Digging them at peak times can cost £2,500 a day.
Harrogate roadworks charges cover 89 streets in the town, more than any other place in North Yorkshire. That is our count of the council’s own list, and it puts Harrogate ahead of Scarborough on 63 and Whitby on 53. Ripon has 48 and Knaresborough 31.
The figures matter because of what the list does. On those streets, and only those streets, a company that digs up the road at a busy time can be charged up to £2,500 for every day the work is there.
Councillors will be told about the scheme on Thursday. A report going to the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Committee sets out what the council can and cannot do about the level of roadworks in the two towns. It is blunt about the limits.
The council says it cannot stop most of the digging
The report is signed off by Karl Battersby, corporate director for environment. It describes “increasing levels of roadworks and street works activity” across Harrogate and Knaresborough, and explains why the council is not in a position to simply refuse them.
Under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, gas, water, electricity and telecoms companies have what the report calls “extensive rights to place, maintain, inspect, repair, renew and replace apparatus within the public highway”. The council’s job is to coordinate, not to veto.
“In practical terms, the authority’s role is often less about deciding whether works can proceed and more about influencing how, when and under what conditions those works take place.”
Emergency and immediate works are harder still. The law lets a company start them without asking first, so the council may only find out after the cones are already down.
The report also gives the size of the team doing that coordinating across the whole county: twelve street works coordinators, twelve street works inspectors, five technical assistants, a charging officer and a fixed penalty notice officer.
What lane rental actually charges
The lane rental scheme is the council’s main new lever. North Yorkshire was approved to run one by a statutory instrument made on 16 April 2026 and in force from 27 April. It was one of seven highway authorities approved at the same time, alongside Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and four London boroughs.
The council’s published charges policy sets four daily rates:
- Band 1, a road closure or work taking up a single carriageway road: £2,500 a day
- Band 2, carriageway remedial works: £2,500 a day
- Band 3, one lane of a multi-lane or dual carriageway: £2,000 a day
- Band 4, a cycle track: £1,500 a day
There are exemptions, and they are worth knowing before assuming a firm is being charged. Charges do not apply outside the traffic-sensitive hours set for each street. They are waived for the first 48 hours of immediate works, on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, and for work confined to a verge, footway, footpath, bridleway or byway. They are also waived where the work does not reduce the lanes or the width available to traffic.
Two firms that agree to dig the same hole at the same time split the daily charge between them, which the policy says is “a minimum of a 50% charge reduction for collaborative working for each promoter”.
Section 74 overrun charges are separate and much smaller. The policy puts them at a single payment of £100, in the circumstances set out in the regulations, once an agreed reasonable period has ended.
Harrogate’s 89 streets
The council publishes the full list as a spreadsheet. We downloaded the February 2026 version and counted it. There are 1,060 streets in total across 207 places, and this is how places in the Harrogate district fall:
| Place | Streets on the list |
|---|---|
| Harrogate | 89 |
| Ripon | 48 |
| Knaresborough | 31 |
| Boroughbridge | 13 |
| Pannal | 8 |
Harrogate’s entries include most of the roads people complain about when they are dug up: Parliament Street, Station Parade, Ripon Road, Skipton Road, Leeds Road, Wetherby Road, Otley Road, Cold Bath Road, Victoria Avenue and Cambridge Street. Crescent Road, shut for Yorkshire Water until 23 October, is on it too.
Knaresborough’s 31 include Briggate, High Street, Bond End, Bar Lane, York Place, Halfpenny Lane and the St James roundabout on the bypass.
Across the county the scheme is deliberately narrow. The scheme document puts it at 7.27% of the county’s streets, or 6.50% of the length of the network.
One early number, and where the money goes
The report gives a single piece of evidence on whether it is working. Average emergency works durations on lane rental routes have fallen “from approximately five days to approximately three days since implementation”.
That is the council’s own early figure and it covers the county, not Harrogate alone. No breakdown by town has been published.
On the income, the report says lane rental is “primarily about behavioural change rather than revenue generation”, that a minimum of 50% of any surplus goes into highway maintenance, and that the rest can fund congestion work and traffic management technology. Spending is overseen by a Lane Rental Governance Board made up of council and utility company representatives.
The report carries no spending decision. It is for information only, and asks councillors to note it and to back continued joint working with the utilities.
What it means for you
- The meeting is at 10am on Thursday 24 September, in the Council Chamber at the Civic Centre, St Luke’s Avenue, Harrogate HG1 2AE. It is open to the public.
- To speak, you had to give notice, including the text of your question or statement, to democratic services by midday on Monday 21 September. Each speaker gets three minutes.
- If roadworks on your street are causing a problem, the report is explicit that local councillors are the route in. Officers say member and parish council knowledge feeds into how works are assessed.
- Do not assume a long closure means nobody is being charged. Footway-only work, off-peak work and work that keeps the traffic flowing are all outside the charge, by design.
- Our Harrogate roadworks and travel page tracks the closures that are live now, and the parking in Harrogate page covers where you can leave the car while they are on.
Also on Thursday’s agenda: the petition on the collapsed Viaduct Terrace in Knaresborough, an active travel update covering the Otley Road and Pannal Ash Road cycleways, and a written report on parking projects. The full agenda and every report are on the council’s meeting page.
Have your say