YOU hear it everyday….Otley would be such a good place to live or visit if only there wasn’t so much traffic. Whenever Otley 2030 run stalls and ask people about what they hope will change for our town in the future, a drastic reduction in traffic comes up again and again and again.

Sometimes the town is at a standstill during the day: shoppers in a hurry, delivery drivers short of time, people trying to get to work - a cavalcade of misery. Meanwhile, at all times of the year, our streets are cluttered with parked cars: parents with pushchairs, people using walking aids or wheelchairs, and pedestrians trying to cross roads safely are all massively inconvenienced.

In 2021, on the 20,000 miles of roads in Yorkshire and Humberside, there were 25.4 billion vehicle miles travelled.

In the Leeds area there is 1.2 cars for every household, an increase of 21 per cent on ten years ago.

What’s to be done? In Otley we live in a town built for horses and carts, but we live in a culture that worships the car. We can’t change the former, so what can we do about the latter?

Better and cheaper public transport, run for people not profit, is an obvious solution and one that we understand the West Yorkshire Combined Travel Authority are working on now, although we won’t be seeing the results for a year or so.

Otley 2030 transport group have come up with some brilliant solutions. A national car hire firm are interested in setting up a car club in Otley, so that people who don’t need a car everyday will have the option of using a car when they need it at a cost much lower than keeping a car. We are hoping to acquire our own ecargo bike as part of our bid to set up a community larder, intercept surplus food and get it to people who need it. If we succeed we will be looking for an entrepreneur to run an ecargo bike delivery service in Otley, using our bike on days when we don’t need it for the larder. The ecargo bike delivery service in Leeds, a business called The Last Mile, has saved thousands of delivery van miles in the ten years that it has been in operation.

The successful Otley Town Council bid to become a Mobility Hub (Active Travel) from West Yorkshire Combined Authority means that very shortly we will have much better infrastructure for walking and cycling within the town, with e-bikes to hire, safe cycling routes and signposting which includes the distance in miles to places to walk, such as the hospital, to encourage people to leave their car at home.

But still… people love the convenience of the car, their own little home from home.

We have to change, our planet is being damaged beyond repair. So please join us as we try to think through this problem. Contact hello@otley2030.com, find out about our transport group and come and join us, we need your ideas and your help.

Shannon Coles

Otley 2030