Cllr Kate Ravilious and York McArthur Glen Designer Outlet on traffic

City of York Council’s Labour transport spokesperson Cllr Kate Ravilious said there were limits to what could be done on nearby roads but improvements including to buses should be in place next year.

McArthur Glen Designer Outlet centre manager Paul Tyler said they were taking steps to try and curb congestion in the coming weeks but it had been affected by factors outside their control.

It comes after delays which brought cars to a standstill were reported on all approaches to the Fulford Road Interchange with the York outer ring road.

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Cllr Ravilious and Mr Tyler said congestion was caused by a combination of the Black Friday sales weekend, the Christmas Market, the UK Snooker Championship and Designer Outlet Winter Wonderland.

But it comes after plans from the shopping centre to put on an extra 340 parking spaces for staff were refused by councillors in July.

Planning committee B refused the plans after council officers ruled it would make congestion worse.

But Mr Tyler told councillors traffic in the run up to Christmas was unmanageable.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) on Monday, December 1, Mr Tyler said it was disappointing that those plans which he believed would deal with congestion were refused.

He added they were running a 200-space temporary staff car park and they were taking steps to tackle the issue and were working with the council to find a long-term solution.

Mr Tyler said: “Traffic and congestion were particularly challenging this past weekend, especially on Saturday afternoon.

“We understand that several issues beyond our control affected the local road network and the ring road, which in turn restricted the ability of vehicles to leave or access the designer outlet.

“Once these external issues were resolved, traffic did begin to flow more freely again, but we recognise that some drivers were delayed for lengthy periods.

“We hope this situation will not be repeated in the coming weeks.

“The Designer Outlet has over 2,700 parking spaces, however the Park & Ride service can occupy up to 1,000 of these on busy weekends, placing substantial pressure on the centre’s parking capacity.”

But Cllr Ravilious said it was not surprising that the temporary car park put on by the shopping centre was insufficient to cope with the traffic.

The executive member added there were no special circumstances which justified approving the additional spaces which would have gone in the green belt.

Cllr Ravilious said: “Together with partners we put in place a number of measures to try and manage the volume of traffic, including additional Park & Ride services, earlier and later running bus services, extensive advertising to encourage travel by bus for the Christmas market, increased event parking charges and parking marshals to help manage city centre car parking.

“It’s clear that York’s roads can’t accommodate this volume of traffic and changes need to occur.

“The council is restricted in what it can do in the area near the Designer Outlet by National Highways who, quite understandably, would not allow any measures that risk of traffic backing up on the A64.

“We have already introduced several bus improvement schemes, with more on the way which should put us in a better position by this time next year.

“By next summer, our Park & Ride enhancements including overnight parking at Askham Bar and Rawcliffe Bar should be in place.

“And right now, we are consulting on a bus priority corridor through the city centre, the Rougier Route, which will bring significantly improved bus journey times and real improvements in reliability.”