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Banks Property is developing proposals for the new Castle Hill West housing scheme on a 12.7 hectare site in Pannal Ash and is expecting to submit an outline planning application to Harrogate Borough Council in the near future.

The site, which is allocated for housing in the new Harrogate Local Plan, is located directly opposite the Castle Hill Farm site along Whinney Lane for which Banks Property received planning permission in 2018 and where regional housebuilder Stonebridge Homes began work on building the first of 130 family homes at the end of last year.

Developers say the new scheme is being designed to bring a range of economic, employment, environmental, supply chain and social benefits to the area, as well as contributing towards local affordable housing needs, and would entail up to 270 high quality family homes being built.

Areas of informal green space, new footpath links and new local road links which can accommodate a bus service will also be included as part of the plan.

To ensure that local people are kept up to date with the plans and have plenty of opportunity to ask questions and make comments during the Covid-19 pandemic, Banks Property has set up a dedicated Castle Hill West web page containing the key plans and information, as well as a project-specific email address through which local people can contact the project team with any queries or comments.

The planning application itself will be subject to the normal consultation processes operated by Harrogate Borough Council.

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Part of the family-owned Banks Group, Banks Property develops brownfield and greenfield for commercial and residential property schemes using a 'development with care' approach, and as well as the Castle Hill Farm scheme, it has previously developed housing schemes in Sheffield and at Methley near Leeds.

Lewis Stokes, community relations manager at The Banks Group, said: “There has been a lot of interest in the homes that have begun to be built on the Castle Hill Farm site and we are confident that this new scheme will prove just as popular with people who want to live locally.

“The Castle Hill West site has been allocated in the Harrogate Local Plan for this sort of development and ensuring that any residential scheme comes with the right sort of supporting social, environmental and transport infrastructure is an essential part of creating a thriving new community.

“As many people are currently finding, the pandemic is preventing us from holding the face-to-face community exhibitions that we normally like to provide for our planning applications, so we have set up the web page to ensure that everyone has access to comprehensive information about the scheme, can view and comment on our proposals and can contact members of the project team with any queries or ideas they might have.

“We are working to build our business presence across Yorkshire and are continuing to work towards bringing a number of further schemes in the county forward in the near future.”

For further information on the Castle Hill West outline application, please visit www.banksgroup.co.uk/castlehillwest

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