YP Letters: Home truth shows village is wrong site for 3,000 new houses

FROM relatives who live in Green Hammerton, I am aware of the strength of feeling in the village against the perceived bias in Harrogate Council’s search for a site for 3,000 houses (The Yorkshire Post, August 4).

The favouring of Green Hammerton over the Flaxby site baffles locals and leaves them understandably frustrated. They are also already looking to assimilate additional commuters in the near future from housing currently under construction and the council did not help their case by deciding to bring a developer with them to the meeting, giving a clear impression of a “hidden agenda”.

Assuming 3,000 homes must be built, the arguments seem to clearly favour Flaxby over Green Hammerton (GH) as the better site. For example:

n Flaxby is only about five miles from Harrogate and on the same side of the A1(M) as Harrogate, whereas GH is a further five miles away and on the wrong side of the A1(M), meaning all Harrogate traffic from GH has to use the busy A1(M)/A59 roundabout. Flaxby therefore means much less pollution from vehicles.

n Flaxby Industrial Estate with an approved extension is barely a mile from the site via an unused link to an A59 roundabout and should provide employment opportunities and reduce commuter travel. GH is about five miles from the industrial estate and again means using the congested A1(M) roundabout.

n The land at Flaxby is currently fallow from a failed earlier development, but the GH land is quality agricultural land still in use.

n Road links to Harrogate need improving and a Flaxby development should mean developer-funded roadworks and possibly a new road of considerable benefit to both Harrogate and Knaresborough. A new link from GH would probably be prohibitively expensive because of the need to cross the A1(M).

n As Flaxby is only five miles from Harrogate it has some logic as a new suburb, but by contrast GH is twice as far from Harrogate and, because it is midway between York and Harrogate, is very likely to attract York commuters, considerably reducing the housing benefit to Harrogate.

As a general point, neither of these locations is likely to tempt developers into providing genuinely affordable housing, nor will they attract typical bus users and, whichever is chosen, Harrogate’s urban sprawl will increase considerably.