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| Stop: residents are voicing their opposition to the Flaxby proposals.. |
RAFT – Residents Against Flaxby Township – says thousands of additional cars would join the
busy stretch between Knaresborough and York, making it difficult for villagers to get to and from their homes and causing chaos for commuters. The residents also warn that, as the gateway to the Harrogate district, the nose-to-tail traffic would deter visitors to the district or force them to use rat runs.
The new plans have been put forward by Skelwith Group which has scrapped its plans for a luxury hotel on the site of the now-closed Flaxby golf course and intends to build 2,500 homes – a development the size of a new town.
Opposition group representative Eleanor Hewitt said: "Having a development such as this at the gateway to the district would have a crippling effect on a thriving village and would have a detrimental impact on Knaresborough and Harrogate."
Eleanor was speaking after a meeting at Goldsborough's Bay Horse pub where more than a hundred residents from Flaxby, Goldsborough and the surrounding area heard more about the proposed development which could become the fourth largest town in the Harrogate district and larger than Boroughbridge.
Nigel Adams, MP for Selby District, Caroline Bayliss, local councillor for the Ribston Ward and Andrew Willoughby from Knaresborough Council and Ben Pilgrim from Skelwith Leisure joined Eleanor at the gathering. The meeting was chaired by councillor Matthew Davies of Goldsborough and Flaxby Parish Council.
Ben Pilgrim reported that he had little new to update residents but added that Skelwith still intends to apply for planning to build at least 2,000 homes on the site. The meeting for Flaxby residents that Skelwith Leisure had promised back in January is now expected to take place in the next few weeks when it unveils how its “Master Plan” has evolved. Mr Pilgrim conceded that a development of the scale proposed is effectively a new town rather than a village.
ORIGINAL PLANS SHELVED
When asked why the original hotel project had been shelved, Mr Pilgrim made it clear that Skelwith as a business is in it to make as much money as possible and saw Harrogate Borough Council’s ‘call for sites’ as the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Caroline Bayliss confirmed that the Skelwith site is just one of several large developments mooted in the Ribston district alone that the council can then consider as part of its revised local plan, which is due to be completed by 2017.
Mr Pilgrim, however, would not rule out that the Skelwith Group may present this site as a separate planning application before then “within months”, rather than waiting to consult upon it as part of the development of the overall local plan.
He said the golf club had closed because it was not making any money although he refused to clarify what proportion of the losses made were from trading as opposed to the £2m per annum interest that Skelwith is paying against the liabilities of over £20m debt that it is carrying. He confirmed that every investor who had speculatively put money into the now defunct golf club hotel project has had their money back, which may come as a surprise to those private individual investors that it is understood are currently seeking over £11m back from Skelwith.
Eleanor Hewitt voiced the concerns of residents about the creation of such a large development from ‘scratch’ including the undoubted effect of increased traffic on the nearby A59, which already carries over 40,000 cars a day on the Flaxby section.
She said such a large increase in traffic would have a knock-on effect on Knaresborough, Harrogate and all the local villages.
"It will be like the Great Yorkshire Show every day of the week” she said, “Not to mention the impact on our already overloaded schools and medical facilities with another 6-8,000 people in the neighbourhood.
"This will affect everybody in the whole of the Harrogate area. It will deter tourists from fighting their way in from the A1, and forcing anyone trying to get to the A1 to find alternative ways round through backroads and villages.”
'ROUGHSHOD'
Nigel Adams suggested to Skelwith Group that it should take its planned development forward as part of the local plan process rather than try to rush through an earlier planning application He reminded Skelwith that rather than riding roughshod over public opinion it would be more sensible to build trust among the local community, something that was clearly missing from the meeting at the Bay Horse.
Eleanor Hewitt confirmed that local residents have the best interests of their locality at heart rather than the purely commercial interests of a developer who is just out to make as much money as possible. “This is a beautiful part of the world.
She added: "The aim of Raft is to ensure the right planning decisions are made, so that the area can be loved and appreciated by 21st century visitors and residents as much as it has been in the past. A huge new dormitory town with little or no infrastructure jemmied in next to such an already busy route and the main A1M would be a crazy idea and I can only hope that Harrogate Planning will realise that.”
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