Fresh row breaks out over rural airfield

A LONG-RUNNING row over an airfield between two villages looks set to erupt again after campaigners compared council planners to the Keystone Cops and insisted stricter controls need to be exerted over the site.

However, Bagby Airfield’s owner has dismissed campaign group Action4Refusal’s claims that Hambleton District Council is not in control of developments at the 44-acre site near Thirsk and has described its planning officers as professional and thorough.

The airfield has been the focus of a bitter dispute between some residents of Bagby and nearby Thirkleby and Martin Scott for more than a decade and has led to public inquiries and an ombudsman’s finding of maladministration with injustice being reached against the council for losing planning control of the airfield.

Since the council approved Mr Scott’s plan to modernise the airfield in 2019, the authority has issued the solicitor with breach of condition notices.

Action4Refusal said Mr Scott had “carried on completely regardless of Hambleton”, building a bigger hangar than he was given permission for and a new access road in the wrong place.

The group said a system in which the public could monitor flights at the airfield, which was key to the airfield revamp getting planning permission, had not been launched. Mr Scott said he was submitting fresh planning applications as a contractor had built the access road in the wrong place and as the hangar had been extended.

Mr Scott said it was frustrating that Action4Refusal chose not to attend meetings about the development that had been organised by the council.

He said: “Hambleton’s officers are very professional. They don’t let me off anything and send me some very hard letters.”

In response to Action4Refusal’s claims, the council’s chief planning officer Jon Berry said the authority had issued notices to the airfield’s owner requiring the development to follow the approved scheme.