Great Ayton: 250 residents of Yorkshire's Captain Cook village object to new housing development and demolition of farm in Conservation Area

The Ward family, whose ancestors have lived on the Cleveland Lodge estate since the 19th century, have applied for outline consent from North Yorkshire Council for 35 homes, a barn conversion, four self-build plots, a new access road, car park and play area at the School Farm site on Station Road. The farmhouse itself is to be demolished.

Council officers recommended the scheme for approval last month subject to conditions – including the provision of affordable housing – despite a previous proposal for 113 houses on the land being refused permission 10 years ago, a decision that was upheld by a government planning inspector at appeal. It was considered ‘unsustainable’ on a greenfield site that is part of the Great Ayton Conservation Area.

The parish council opposed the new plans, and the council received 271 comments from local residents, 253 of whom objected. Many residents were against the loss of a historic farm, as well as the prospect of ‘overdevelopment’ in the village.

Council planners deemed that there were no suitable brownfield sites in the area that could be developed for housing, and that the School Farm plot was outside the main ‘built form’ of the village. Ten of the properties are proposed to be affordable. Officers concluded that the 35-home development would be smaller in scale and more ‘organic’ than the 2013 scheme, and thus more easily assimilated into the settlement. They had no major concerns about heritage impact, and were told by the landowners that tenant farming of the land has ceased. It was considered that the loss of the farmhouse on Station Road could improve views of Captain Cook’s Monument.

Local resident Fiona Williams said: “Nobody seems to have taken into account the views of over 250 objectors, but they have listened to the 16 in favour, many of whom don’t live in the village. Nor have the council heeded their own Local Plan which does not identify this site as suitable for development.

"Station Road is the main access road to the railway station, the tourist route to Gribdale car park for those visiting Captain Cook’s Monument and Roseberry Topping, and the popular Fletchers farm shop and cafe. The proposal to reduce the width of the carriageway is insane and will create a bottleneck.

"This isn’t Nimby-ism. It’s the wrong type of housing in the wrong area. They will go down in the history of our village as the council who built a road and car park in a Conservation Area, created a traffic bottleneck and destroyed a heritage site to build some luxury dwellings that not many will find affordable, destroyed the view from the very well-used public footpath and ignored the residents of the village in favour of landowners and developers.”

Consent has not yet been formally granted due to discussions over the terms of the Section 106 agreement – which requires the developer to make a contribution to community infrastructure.

Last summer, the Wards put Cleveland Lodge on the market for the first time since it was built in the 1840s for the great north-east railway and shipping baron Thomas Richardson.

After Richardson’s death, the estate – which includes School Farm – passed to a cousin and remained in the Pease family until 1957. They acquired more land in Great Ayton, and one of the Pease daughters married into the Fry chocolate family.

The Frys owned the estate until 2001, when Lady Anne Fry died and it was inherited by her niece, Caroline Ward. Around this time, the 763-acre Roseberry estate, which was also part of the Frys’ holdings, was broken up and sold. One of the lots was Aireyholme Farm, the childhood home of explorer Captain James Cook.

Cleveland Lodge also has arable farms, woodland and a grouse moor, which are currently for sale separately.