A REQUEST from Kirkbymoorside Town Council to trial a one-way system in the town has been rejected as too expensive by North Yorkshire County Council.

The traffic regulation order (TRO), agreed by the town council at its meeting in September, would have seen West End become an experimental one-way system, in response to the ongoing issue of heavy traffic in the narrow street.

But at a meeting last Monday, the town council heard that NYCC’s will not be taking the request forward.

In its response to the town council, NYCC blamed cuts from central government funding as the reason for its refusal.

Tim Coyne, of the highways department, wrote: “The county council is now working under significantly reduced funding for highway improvement works.

“As a result of these constraints, the council targets any funding that is still available towards those areas of the county with a history of recorded injury accidents. There have been no reported personal injury accidents along West End in the last three years.”

He added that another concern was that such a system may increase traffic up Tinley Garth to its junction with Market Place, which has poor visibility.

“We would not wish to intensify the use of this junction which would potentially solve one issue but create another,” he said.

But one town councillor, Chris Dowie, said that “doing nothing is not an option”, and added that concerns about Tinley Garth were not valid as a weight restriction could be imposed on the street.

In addition to the TRO, the town council had floated the idea of putting in bollards to prevent vehicles mounting the pavement - another key concern. But the bollard idea was rejected by residents for a wide variety of reasons, including that it would have no effect on the speed of vehicles and would only serve to reduce space for pedestrians.

Vic Hoyland, a resident of West End, said the town infrastructure was never designed to take the current volume of traffic and parked cars.

“We’re regularly stepping out of our way of trapped traffic, sometimes pressed to the walls of houses or jumping into doorways,” he said.

“There is no coherent plan for this old town which is suffocating from full on-street parking and narrow streets unable to sustain two-way traffic.

“West End is not a main road thoroughfare, but there are times in the day, and night, when it is used in this way.”

Residents are currently looking at the possibility of forming an action group on traffic, as has been done elsewhere in Ryedale.