Council locked in crucial battle over housing
By Nina Swift
A BATTLE to stop hundreds of homes from being built on rural Harrogate land and to save “a big chunk of open countryside” is being fought at a public inquiry this week.
The greenfield site, on Penny Pot Lane, has been identified by Harrogate Borough Council as having development potential from 2016 at the earliest.
Before then, the council hopes to meet Government targets, which require 390 new homes a year, with brownfield sites – former commercial or industrial land.
But developer Hallam Land Management wants to build on Penny Pot Lane as soon as possible. It has taken its scheme, which the council has consistently rejected as premature, to the highest planning authority.
The two parties have been clashing all week at an inquiry at Henshaws College on Bogs Lane, in what amounts to the first major practical test of the council’s Local Development Framework – the much scrutinised document demanded by the Government which sets out sites for thousands of new homes between now and 2025.
Coun Don Mackenzie, cabinet member for planning and transport, said: “It is very important that we win this appeal. We have made a commitment to residents in Harrogate that we will use greenfield land only when there is no suitable brownfield alternative.
“It’s too big a price to pay to take a big chunk of open countryside when, in our opinion, there are plenty of brownfield sites available.”
The proposal includes 222 houses – around half of them affordable – with 1m ringfenced for a shuttle bus to the town centre for five years, new bus lay-bys, cycleways and footpath improvements through Killinghall Moor Country Park.
Also included in the application – which has changed significantly since first rejected last June – is land set aside for a primary school and a shop.
Coun Mackenzie said the applicants’ counsel had been trying to persuade the planning inspector that the council’s five-year housing land supply was not ‘robust’. “He was going through all our brownfield land site by site, including Station Parade and the BT site in an effort to show that our published five-year housing land supply is flawed.
“We don’t think it’s necessary at this stage to use open countryside,” he added. “While the area may be a preferred option for us in the future – we are talking 2016 at the earliest – it is not needed now.
“This is purely and simply premature.”
Richard Thomas, a resident of Nitter Hill, Penny Pot Lane, for 60 years, who spoke out at the inquiry, also had concerns.
A former chairman of the council's planning committee, he said: “It’s an attack on what is really a rural area and on its landscape. The landscape would be seriously affected.”
Coun Mackenzie and Dr Rosemary Carnaghan, chairman of the Duchy Residents’ Association and a member of Residents Against Spoiling Harrogate, have maintained close contact throughout the inquiry.
Coun Mackenzie said: “Rosemary is concerned, as are many residents, about this particular appeal. Any development there would lead to a huge increase in traffic movements through the Duchy estate, on roads which are unsuitable. I know she is also fearful, as we are, that the infrastructure simply isn’t there.”
The developer did not wish to comment.
The inquiry continues until Tuesda. Planning inspector Julia Gregory will then present the evidence to the Secretary of State. A decision could be made within three to four months.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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