Councillor hits out at planners delaying A1 services upgrade

Coun Carl Les, whose family has run Leeming Bar Services at the junction of the A1 and A684 for 50 years, has been attempting to upgrade the site to motorway standard for more than two decades.

Despite claiming that Hambleton District Council has agreed to the proposals in principle, Coun Les says they have been plagued with delays after being lumped together with other applications at public inquiry.

Next month, the Leeming Bar upgrade will again be considered at an eight-day public inquiry alongside three competing applications to build new motorway service areas (MSAs) near Ripon and Boroughbridge.

The inquiry into the three proposed locations – two at the A1/A61 Baldersby junction near Melmerby by Refined Estates Ltd and Jaytee (Rainton) LLP, and a third at Kirby Hill by Heather Ive Associates – originally opened in November 2010 and closed in February last year.

The Secretary of State has now decided to reopen the inquiry in order to obtain further information on certain aspects of the proposals – specifically, the earthworks required to accommodate one of the sites at Baldersby and a number of issues relating to access arrangements for all sites.

A final decision is now expected to be in June this year.

Coun Les told the Yorkshire Post: “This has been extremely frustrating for us.

“We are the only application for a motorway service area which is an existing business and for the development on an existing site.

“All the other applications for motorway service areas are on greenfield sites that have been refused by the planning authority.

“We started negotiations with this back in 1991.

“It is extremely frustrating, I just want some assurance we can get on and do the job we have been doing for the past 50 years.”

The current inquiry represents the third appeal by Heather Ives Associates with respect to their plans to build a motorway service area at Kirby Hill. The group had an application refused by Harrogate Borough Council in 2009.

Initially, it was approved by the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, but another inquiry was ordered when his decision was challenged in the High Court.

The second inquiry selected a site at Kirk Deighton, north of Wetherby, and it is now built and being operated by Moto.

A protest group called Kirby Hill RAMS (Residents Against Motorway Services) and residents of Melmerby – the closest village to the Baldersby sites – have voiced opposition to the site claiming it would lead to noise, pollution, increased crime and the despoiling of the countryside.

When all of the motorway service area applications were first submitted, the Department for Transport had planned to continue the upgrade of the A1 dual carriageway between Dishforth and Barton, near Scotch Corner.

But in November 2010, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review, the coalition Government announced it was axing the upgrade north of Leeming – due to start in 2014.

A spokeswoman for Harrogate Borough Council, said: “The inquiry will reopen at the Yorkshire Hotel in Harrogate on February 21 and is scheduled to run for a maximum of eight days.

“The further information essentially involves a number of technical issues: the re-opened inquiry will focus wholly on these matters and will not provide a further opportunity to revisit those issues debated at length last year.

“The Inspector will report his findings from this inquiry to the Secretary of State, who will consider these, alongside the inspector’s report from the main inquiry, before coming to a final decision that is now expected to be in June this year.”