Land should remain public open space

We would like to make public the dismay our neighbours and ourselves felt at the decision by councillors to call in the decision not to sell the land in Danes Dyke to Home Group.

This land was designated a public open space for the use and recreation of residents under a section 106 agreement and this is what it should remain.

If this was sold at the knock down price of £50,000 that would mean Scarborough council tax payers would be subsidising these flats to the tune of £16,500 per flat.

As a council tax payer seeing services cut throughout the borough I, and I’m sure many others, feel that this is not the best use of our finances. Surely there are other much cheaper parcels of land where a refuge could be sited at a much cheaper cost to the taxpayer.

Christian Lang, of Home Group, who incidentally lives in the Cotswolds, is quite happy to see this development built at the end of Danes Dyke.

At the first public meeting we had with Home Group he said twice in front of a table full of witnesses that he would not like this building at the bottom of his street. If it is not good enough for him, why should it be okay for Danes Dyke?

The North Yorkshire Highway Authority raised no concerns over the traffic, saying that there was only a moderate amount of traffic using the road. We didn’t believe this so we did our own traffic census and the results were a surprise even to us.

We counted the traffic over a five-day period to coincide with the surgery opening hours. There were 800 vehicle movements per day and considering the road is a 200m long cul-de-sac we don’t consider this to be moderate.

We are disappointed that the councillors in favour of this proposal have never had the decency to come to any of our public meetings to meet the residents and listen to our concerns. While claiming the moral high ground, they seem to forget the elderly residents whose lives will be affected by any building in Danes Dyke.

We fully appreciate the need for a safe refuge for women suffering domestic violence but feel that Danes Dyke is not the right place for this or any other building development. D and L Crabtree, Danes Dyke, Scarborough