Housing chief braced for protest as development sites revealed

THE sites for thousands of new homes to be built across the Harrogate district in the coming years are set to be unveiled this summer – and the senior councillor overseeing the scheme says the local authority will embrace opposition to the plans as it starts to ratchet up a huge consultation campaign.

Harrogate Borough Council has set a housing growth target of more than 5,000 new homes – 390 for each year throughout the area up to 2023-24 – to try to address a critical lack of affordable housing across the district.

Last year, consultation over building homes in the rural parts of the district such as Pateley Bridge and Pannal sparked a wave of opposition to the plans, leading to the controversial strategy being delayed so the council could effectively consider residents’ comments.

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Now the authority is moving forward with its proposals for urban areas across Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough – with proposed sites being put forward later this month and an eight-week consultation set to take place from September.

The Cabinet member for planning, transport and economic development, Richard Cooper, said: “If you are talking about where houses are going to be built over the next 15 years, it is impossible not to put them somewhere where no one will object.

“However, we need homes for local people and there are housing problems in Harrogate. This is the most important issue that we will ever deal with.

“This is about the future of our district and where people are going to live. It is critical that everybody has their say.

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“I don’t care if we have to take longer to finish this process because we have had such a huge response. Even if people are angry with what we are putting forward I want as many people to respond as possible.”

Despite the number of houses proposed to be built in the district, Coun Cooper claimed the figure of 390 a year is a third less than what was being built in 2001.

However, he assured residents who are struggling to afford a home in a district that the scheme would provide enough new houses to meet Harrogate’s needs.

The Yorkshire Post has learned that the council is planning a huge consultation over the proposals between September 9 and November 4.

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Over eight weeks, 51,000 newspapers will be delivered to homes across Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough, 16,000 flyers will be delivered to homes and businesses, 3,000 letters will be sent to landowners and parish councils and six public exhibitions of the plans will take place.

The Harrogate district falls within the so-called Golden Triangle along with York and Leeds and includes some of the most sought-after postcodes in the north for househunters.

The average property price in the district for the first three months of this year was £277,332, which represented a 14.7 per cent increase compared with the same period in 2009.

A detached property in the Harrogate district costs, on average, nearly £400,000.

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The council has stressed that the strategy will strike a “good balance” between providing much-needed affordable homes while making sure that parts of the district are not swamped by new housing developments.

The council is set to give the go-ahead to the plans early next year.

Meanwhile, plans have been submitted to demolish the National Milk Records office and laboratory in Skipton Road and transform the site into a 104-bed care home.

The site, next to the 18th century listed Grove House, the headquarters of the charitable institution the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (RAOB), would employ 120 staff.

The plans are due to go before a Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee on Tuesday next week.