North Yorkshire councillors agree to create new 30-year plan for housing

Conservative councillors on the North Yorkshire County Council executive met today to approve the creation of the document, which must be finalised within five years of the new North Yorkshire Council forming on April 1.

It will replace the seven Local Plans that are currently used by the soon-to-be abolished district councils.

This also means the reviews that are underway on the plans for Harrogate Borough Council and Craven District Council will be halted.

However, both documents will still guide planning decisions until the new Local Plan is created.

Harrogate Borough Council’s Local Plan says around 13,000 homes can be built across the district between 2014 and 2034.

Craven District Council’s Local Plan calls for 4,600 new homes to be built across the district between 2012 and 2032.

Conservative Mid-Craven councillor Simon Myers, executive member for planning for growth, told the meeting that the Local Plan will be “hugely important to the economic vitality of the county”.

He said: “It’s hugely important for the provision of housing and for many strategic matters.

"It is imperative we have an ambitious Local Plan for North Yorkshire and that planning committees abide by it.”

Councillor Myers confirmed that the new council will create six new planning committees to oversee decisions across parliamentary constituency areas, such as Harrogate and Knaresborough and Skipton and Ripon.

Linda Marfitt, acting head of place-shaping and economic growth at North Yorkshire County Council, said the creation of a new Local Plan is a “great opportunity to deliver some of the ambitions the new council will have”.

She said: “A plan-led approach will ensure the new council is in the best possible place to guide quality development and infrastructure.”

Maltkiln

Whilst a review into Harrogate Borough Council’s Local Plan will now not take place, work on the Maltkiln Development Plan Document (DPD) will continue.

Maltkiln is the name of a new settlement proposed by the Oakgate Group around Cattal train station.

It is set to have between 3,000 and 4,000 homes, as well as two primary schools, shops and a GP surgery.

The DPD is in the latter stages of development, after being worked on for the last two years.

It sets out a 30-year vision and policy framework on how Maltkiln is designed and developed.

However, Arnold Warneken, Green Party councillor for the Ouseburn division on the North Yorkshire County Council, described the process in forming it as “rushed” and said residents have unanswered questions over the boundary of the settlement as well as the position of a new relief road.

He said: “The whole process, from my perspective and the eight parish councils it will affect, has been rushed.

"I’m really, really keen that if this settlement goes ahead it becomes the exemplar it’s meant to be.

"I dont want it to be rushed, I want it to be right.

"I want to exercise caution before the inspector gets his hands on it.”

In response, Councillor Michael Harrison, Conservative councillor for Killinghall, Hampsthwaite and Saltergate as well as executive member for health and adult said: “We want the Maltkiln DPD to be right and planning in Harrogate could never be described as rushed.”

He added: “If we pause progression of DPD it ceases to be a plan-led approach in the local area.

"The worst thing we could do is to stop the Maltkiln DPD because we’d still have to determine those planning applications.”