New village with up to 2,500 homes proposed between York and Harrogate

Detailed proposals to create a new village of up to 2,500 homes at a site located between York and Harrogate have been unveiled after developers said they have shelved plans for a luxury golf resort.
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Developers will next week unveil the latest proposals for Flaxby Golf Course at a public exhibition after revealing that while plans for the site still include a hotel, the proposals no longer included a golf course and it is now proposing to dramatically alter the plans and create up to 2,500 homes instead.

Plans to build a 300-room hotel and leisure development on the existing 27-hole Flaxby Park Golf course had been previously revealed. But significant changes to the plans have now been announced.

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A spokesman for York-based Skelwith, which owns the site off the A59 said yesterday: “It will be a different hotel but there will still be a hotel at the heart of the masterplan but obviously it will not be a golf resort hotel as planned because we will not have a golf course.

“We are still going to include a hotel at the heart of the masterplan for the site but we will be having significant residential development on the site as well.”

The spokesman said it aimed to submit outline plans for the site next year, around spring.

Earlier this year members of Harrogate Borough Council voted to withdraw and create a new planning blueprint, which earmarks sites suitable for housing, industry and other future development, after a planning inspector raised concerns thousands more homes than had been planned for were needed in future in the area.

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Fears were raised at the time that not having Local Plan in place would mean the council would find it harder to prevent developers trying to build on sites it wishes to protect as it cannot demonstrate it has suitable alternative sites for development to meet predicted housing demands.

However at the time a council spokesman said: “...talk of a planning free for all’ is wide of the mark.”

He said other policies were in place which would be used to guide planning decisions: “The council will continue to determine planning applications using policies in the adopted Core Strategy and Harrogate District Local Plan, taking into account the five year supply position and policy guidance set out in the National Planning Policy Framework,” he said

Along with new homes, the new plans will also include community facilities including a primary school, a village centre with shops, a medical centre and business units.

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Paul Ellis, managing director of Skelwith claimed there had been talk about creating a new settlement in the A1/A59 corridor to meeting housing need.

“We believe that this site can help meet the housing shortage in the area,” he said.

The public exhibition will be at the Flaxby Golf Course Clubhouse, 2pm-7pm on Tuesday.