Plea to stop spread of industrial estate
Petition over scheme to use 70 acres of farmland
HUNDREDS OF residents and traders are calling on a council to abandon its plan to buy 70 acres of farmland for a major expansion of an industrial estate.
They have told Hambleton District Council it should be using taxpayers’ money for essential services.
Almost 500 people signed within days a Leeming Bar Action Group petition pressing the council to drop part of its draft Local Plan to extend “employment land” at the business park,
They are concerned over “creeping urbanisation” between Bedale and Northallerton.
A Government Inspector is to investigate the council’s ambition as part of its Local Plan development blueprint for the district.
The action group’s members said they had been angered by the Conservative-run authority’s chief executive using emergency coronavirus powers to approve negotiations with eight landowners to buy the site.
The action group had urged the authority, which has allocated £127,000 to progress feasibility and viability work, not to spend additional taxpayers’ money on developing its plan until after the Planning Inspectorate completes its examination of the Local Plan.
In submissions to the Government Inspector, the council’s leader, Coun Mark Robson, has described the expansion of the industrial estate as “a key priority” in the Local Plan to boost the area’s economy.
But numerous residents have condemned the proposed move and some have called for the council to help tackle the number of empty shops in nearby Northallerton.
Residents Ann and Brian Thomas objected to the Leeming Bar plan saying high streets needed bringing “back to life”.
They wrote: “More money should be put towards attracting small businesses back into the High Street.
“Reduce the business rates not tempt business to these outer business parks. Rates are far too high, parking charges are killing the High Street!”
Another resident, Neil Reed, said developing 70 acres would see nearby residential areas “swamped by the surrounding industry”.
A spokeswoman for the action group said the inspector’s initial response to the plan had called into question both the location and the quantity of land which the council “wants to turn into factories, the methodologies used to choose it, and the devastating impact this could have on local residents”.
If signatures on the change. org petition rise to more than 870, the authority’s policy states it will be debated at a meeting at which all councillors can attend and the petition organiser would be given five minutes to present the petition.