Harrogate residents fear they face even more years of house building in their congested patch

Frustrated residents in the Kingsley and Bogs Lane area of Harrogate have already endured six years of disruption in which grassy fields which were once home to deer, foxes and badgers have disappeared in a haze of dust, disruption, potholes and road closures.

Members of Kingsley Ward Action Group have seen a string of individual housing developments by different builders grow around them since 2019 which have resulted in approximately 600 new homes in the Kingsley Road/Bogs Lane area and the loss of green spaces.

KWAG member John Hansard is highlighting – once again - the tiresome impact of the daily rumbling of lorries through the area's compact streets which feed into the congested Starbeck High Street and Knaresborough Road.

"We want to express our utter dismay that yet again Kingsley Road has been earmarked to bear the brunt of all the construction traffic for the Kingsley Road Persimmon development,” said Mr Hansard.

"Hasn't Kingsley Road suffered enough?

"Day after day after day of heavy trucks trundling along our once quiet residential street, from Barratts, Stonebridge, Persimmon Part 1 and Redrow, two of which are still ongoing.

"We've had six years of this now with absolutely no end in sight."

Local residents do not question the need for new housing or suggest that big housing developers or the local authorities are breaking any rules.=

But they do object to what they say is an almost complete absence of new infrastructure or any additional transport options to create a better outcome in this built-up area once the dust has settled.

And there are now fears that, once the current series of housing developments identified in the Local Plan created by the now defunkt Harrogate Borough Council are completed, the Kingsley and Bogs Lane areas will face a whole new wave.

At the moment, work on the North Yorkshire Local Plan which will set out where development will take place across the county over the next 15 to 20 years is at an early stage.

Once complete, it will be one of the largest Local Plans in England in geographic terms.

All sites previously submitted to each District Council as part of their respective Local Plan preparations must be resubmitted, whether that is Harrogate’s or Selby’s.

The Council’s Local Plan team, consisting of officers from each of now-combined districts, is set to work cooperatively throughout the plan-making process to ensure that the Local Plan is delivered by its target adoption date of 2028.

Last year North Yorkshire Council issued a ‘call for sites’ when it invited landowners, site promoters and developers to submit sites for consideration as allocations in the Local Plan.

What has come in so far can be viewed in a provisional map online.

And that is already pointing to new and additional sites for more housing in the Bogs Lane area.

Nothing has yet been settled or finalised when it comes the future shape of Harrogate and, indeed, North Yorkshire as a whole.

But residents in one particular of Harrogate are worried.

For more information on the North Yorkshire Local Plan and to see the provisional map, visit: https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/planning-and-conservation/planning-policy/call-sites-north-yorkshire-local-plan