A planning specialist has blamed Harrogate District Council’s “parochial mindset” and “lack of vision” for the district’s “massive urban sprawl”.
David Howarth, who was employed by the council for five years in the 1980s and then worked for it as a private consultant for 30 years, contacted the Stray Ferret to give us his views after reading our series of planning articles this week.
Mr Howarth said the coverage had “brilliantly identified the major problems we have had over the last 20 years”.
He said the district’s planning department had been in a “state of disarray for two decades”, which had left the area at the mercy of developers.
David Howarth
Mr Howarth said the “acutely embarrassing debacle” of the Local Plan, which maps planning in the district and took six years to finalise between 2014 and 2020, was the critical failure. He said:
“When you get to the position where you have no Local Plan it becomes a free-for-all.
“You can’t blame the developers. They’re just doing their job. You can’t criticise them any more than you can Volvo for selling cars.”
Read more:
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- Housing case study: 75 homes forced on Killinghall after appeal
Mr Howarth said many councils faced similar challenges but Harrogate Borough Council’s “parochial mindset” had backfired because its unrealistically low housing targets had been rejected by the government and resulted in far more being built. He said:
“We tried to restrict development because places like Harrogate and Knaresborough are nice places to live but when you try to restrict development to the absolute minimum and don’t conform with government guidelines, what happens then is the opposite arises and everybody piles in.
“In 1982 Killinghall Parish Council was screaming for a bypass. That’s 40 years ago — where’s the bypass? What we have instead is massive urban sprawl.
“A bypass could have been included in the Local Plan. The plan could have made developers pay a levy for houses they built Killinghall.”
Afraid to speak out
Mr Howarth said the council’s weak resistance to builders contrasted with its heavy-handed approach to residents seeking planning permission. He said:
“Some developments that have been accepted are very poor but if you put in an application to extend your conservatory they are down on you like a ton of bricks.”
Mr Howarth said the current situation was “predominantly the fault of the people in charge of Harrogate Borough Council” and its planning department needed to be more dynamic and visionary.
He said many planners were reluctant to speak out in case it cost them work with the council. He said:
“I’ve retired and could not care less now. Five years ago I wouldn’t have made this phone call.”
The Stray Ferret has asked Harrogate Borough Council for a response to Mr Howarth’s claims. At the time of publication we had not received one.
