£40m plans for new bus depot, drive through restaurants, and park and ride spark residents' concerns

Ashcourt Construction Limited wants to build the £40m scheme, including the facility for East Yorkshire Buses, on fields on a wedge of land between the A1079 Beverley Road and A1174 Raich Carter Way.

The new facility, which would have maintenance, training and office facilities, would replace East Yorkshire Buses’ 100-year-old depot on Anlaby Road and a smaller site in Brough. Plans state that the site, which lies just within the East Riding’s boundary but a short distance from neighbourhoods in Hull, will "allow the company to expand its routes and make it easier to introduce electric buses".

East Yorkshire Buses was family run until being bought out by Go Ahead in 2018 and it "has long had a requirement to move to better premises that are modern and fit for purpose".

There would be around 50 staff on site during the day and a fleet of 200 buses would be parked overnight.

There would also be a petrol filling station and the three drive throughs, including a coffee outlet, would be located near one of two accesses from Beverley Road. There'd be two accesses off Raich Carter way.

The plans have been designed with a "large buffer and acoustic fence to reduce impact to the residential properties to the south".

The plans claim that East Riding Council and Hull Council’s planning policy as well as its local transport plan “give strong support for a park and ride to be delivered on the site quickly”. It states that the site had been allocated as a park and ride in the East Riding local plan since 2016.

However Hull Council leader Mike Ross, a Beverley and Newland ward councillor, said residents had already been in touch raising concerns about noise, disruption and the impact of extra traffic.

He said: “Residents started noticing notices had gone up and word spread online. We haven’t been formally notified.

"The park and ride is really by the looks of it a fairly minor aspect of the scheme. The principle of a park and ride would be welcomed, but I don’t think this site works for it.

"Neighbours that back onto the Evergreen Drive area are very concerned and I am sure we will be representing their views on this matter. It just feels like an overdevelopment of that piece of land.”

He said there’s been protests nearly 20 years ago when the plans were first mooted but he expected opposition against the latest plans to be far greater. The plans will be decided by East Riding Council as the site, which is bisected by the Beverley and Skidby drain and is close to the River Hull, lies within their boundary.

It lies in Flood Zone 3, a high-risk area for flooding.

Ashcourt Properties started out as a a student accommodation provider before its construction division started in 2010 and it acquired Simpson Quarries. Since then, the family business has expanded rapidly through strategic acquisitions and is said to have a workforce of over 1,000.