Landowners to face compulsory purchase of park and ride land

After nearly a decade of calls to tackle the traffic problems blighting Whitby's roads, the 450-space scheme is finally about to become a reality.

Council chiefs are being recommended to agree to acquire the site from local farmers, using compulsory purchase powers if necessary.

It means residents, commuters, and holidaymakers should be able to leave their cars at the junction of the A171 and B1460, near Cross Butts Farm, rather than hunt for on-street spaces or pay for off-street parking.

To ensure the scheme remains on track North Yorkshire county councillors are being urged to agree on Tuesday to adopt powers to buy up the land by force if negotiations with the owners do not work out.

Consent for the scheme was granted in January 2009 by the North York Moors National Park Authority, which had rejected a previous scheme near Victoria Farm Garden Centre.

Since then officers have working out the details of the necessary infrastructure, including the bus route for the shuttling of visitors to and from the centre of Whitby and parking restrictions to ensure the service runs smoothly.

The authority's consultants for land and property, Bruton Knowles, contacted the landowners of the field to the west of the A171/B1460 junction, which is the site of the car park, and negotiations are under way.

The county's corporate director of environmental services Richard Flinton said: "The intention is for the park and ride facility to be open and functioning in time for the 2011 summer season.

"To achieve this, the construction of the car park itself will need to be undertaken in the summer of 2010, with the highway works – including the construction of a new roundabout at the junction of the A171 and B1460 – in the autumn.

"If the negotiations stall in the future, for whatever reason, insufficient time would be available for a compulsory purchase order process to be started and then completed before construction will need to start to achieve the opening date."

It has been made clear that while it is the council's intention to acquire the land by negotiation with the present owners, in the event that it is not possible then the council would need to rely on compulsory powers to deliver the scheme.

Parliament has always taken the view that land should only be taken compulsorily where there is clear evidence that the public benefit will outweigh the private loss.

But Mr Flinton stressed that the land in question was the preferred location for the park and ride facility from both traffic engineering and transportation planning perspectives.

He continued: "It provides a site location that will attract the greatest number of users, good vehicular access, suitable bus priority, minimised traffic delay and journey time, and a safer junction design.

"The proposed access roundabout will address a significant accident record at this junction and improve the quality of life of the occupants and users of the nearby buildings."

A new roundabout would cut vehicle speeds on the approaches, making it safer to join the A171, while footways and traffic islands will make it safer for pedestrians to cross both the A171 and B1460.

The total estimated cost of the scheme is 2.433, and includes the estimated 30, 000 cost of the compulsory purchase orders.

But any significant delay would increase the bill, Mr Flinton warned.