No need for a new building for North York Moors National Park - Yorkshire Post Letters

Your front page article (February 15) about the North York Moors National Park plans for a new headquarters uses the term "hypocrisy", and not without good reason.

It is extraordinary that a publicly funded organisation charged with conservation should abandon its splendid listed building in the centre of Helmsley and choose instead to buy a plot of green field land on the edge of town, outside its own park area, and build a new office block, depot and car park.

Even more extraordinary that they should keep this plan under wraps for so long, consistently denying widely held rumours of their intentions.

At the time of writing there have been no formal approaches about this to either the town council or the county planning department. They have hidden behind the smoke screen of another development plan for the adjacent field, which has attracted more controversy.

On this prime pasture land it is proposed to build around 50 houses plus an unspecified number of commercial and industrial properties. All of this to be built at the end of a residential cul-de-sac with a road entirely unsuited to the heavy traffic that it will cause.

Given the large number of properties, both domestic and commercial, standing empty around Helmsley, it is hard to see the evidence that any of this new building is actually needed.

The justification that these developments were in the town plan of almost a decade ago have no validity since new building envisaged in that plan has already been exceeded whilst the population has fallen.

There is an urgent need for all such plans to be put on hold until the residents of the town have had opportunity to consider what is needed in the town and where in a new Helmsley development plan.