A councillor has called for a pause in housebuilding in Harrogate while work on a new local plan for the whole of North Yorkshire is drawn up.
In December, members of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive approved the creation of a new local plan, which must be finalised within five years of North Yorkshire Council being formed on April 1.
It will identify land that can be developed and will replace the seven local plans that are currently used by the soon-to-be-abolished district and borough councils.
This includes Harrogate Borough Council’s Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which was adopted in 2020 and says over 13,000 homes can be built between 2014-2035. The council has said the document will guide planning decisions until the new local plan is created.
Harrogate’s local plan has led to large new housing developments being built in almost every corner of the district. Last month, approval was given to 162 more homes on Kingsley Drive in Harrogate and 1,300 homes at Clotherholme in Ripon.
But councillors have heard repeated concerns about whether the district’s roads, schools and GP practices can cope with the increase in housing.
Read more:
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The thorny issue came up at a full meeting of North Yorkshire County Council on Friday.
Statistics released in the government’s last Housing Delivery Test revealed 1,641 homes — 266% above target — were built in the district between 2018 and 2021.
This led Liberal Democrat councillor for the High Harrogate and Kingsley division, Chris Aldred, to ask North Yorkshire County Council’s Conservative executive member for planning for growth, Simon Myers, if the new council would consider pausing new applications in areas where these government targets are being met.
He said:
“There are areas within the county where we’re well ahead of scheduled housing delivery targets. In Harrogate we are 200% over-target according to the government’s own statistics.
“While we’re developing a new local plan for the county, could you consider in areas where we are well ahead of delivery, we actually pause the application process so we don’t get any houses in areas where we might not have done when we’ve got the new local plan.”
The new council will create six new planning committees to oversee decisions across parliamentary constituency areas, such as Harrogate and Knaresborough and Skipton and Ripon.
They will be set up with councillors from across the political spectrum voting on whether significant planning applications go ahead.
‘Misleading’ figure
After the meeting, Cllr Myers told the Local Democracy Reporting Service the 200% figure was misleading. He said:
“Essentially, Harrogate has only just caught up with its own housing targets. It isn’t 200% over. The development is all in accordance with the local plan and to halt development would put Harrogate at risk of the plan being seen as out of date and open the possibility of speculative development. And of course with development we hope to deliver affordable housing which is sorely needed in every part of the county.
“The figure of 200% ‘over delivery’ was published in the government’s housing delivery test calculation pre-adoption of the Harrogate local plan. This was based on delivery against the standard methodology figure that does reflect an accurate picture of need. If you look at delivery against the actual plan-target, the figure is lower.
“In summary, the 200% figure is misleading and the higher-than-plan-target delivery rates should not be cause for alarm as they reflect positive progress on addressing a significant shortfall and reflect a planned trajectory.”
