Subscribe to trusted local news
If you are accessing this story via Facebook but you are a subscriber then you will be unable to access the story. Facebook wants you to stay and read in the app and your login details are not shared with Facebook. If you experience problems with accessing the news but have subscribed, please contact subscriptions@thestrayferret.co.uk. In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
25
Aug
Campaigners start legal action against A1(M) services near Boroughbridge approval
Campaigners have started legal action against a decision for a new motorway services off the A1(M) in Kirby Hill.
North Yorkshire Council granted planning permission last month for the Vale of York services between junctions 48 and 49 of the A1(M) northbound, between Boroughbridge and Ripon.
The services were first proposed 30 years ago.
A Welcome Break services, with parking for 364 cars, 90 HGVs, 18 coaches, caravans and motorcycles, will be built along with fuel stations, a drive-through coffee shop and an amenity building.
However, campaigners said the council's decision raised “serious legal issues”, including whether the outline planning permission had expired before the subsequent reserved matters application was approved.
Artist impression of the service station as submitted to North Yorkshire Council.
Gareth Owens, chair of Kirby Hill Residents Against Motorway Services (RAMS), said the group’sl law firm Leigh Day has sent a pre-action protocol letter for judicial review to the council, which challenges the decision to approve the proposal.
The challenge includes concerns that the council:
- applied the wrong legal test when deciding that further Environmental Impact Assessment was not required;
- failed adequately to assess whether the environmental information before it remained sufficient to assess the likely significant environmental effects of the detailed development; and
- wrongly excluded nearby proposed major developments from consideration when determining whether cumulative environmental effects required assessment.
Mr Owens said:
We have always said that an urbanising development of this scale, in this sensitive rural location, must be subject to proper environmental scrutiny and be determined in accordance with the law.
Our concern is not simply that we disagree with the Council's conclusions. We contend that there were fundamental legal errors in the process by which those conclusions were reached, including the Council's approach to Environmental Impact Assessment and cumulative development.
After taking specialist legal advice, we have now asked North Yorkshire Council formally to reconsider its decision. If those issues cannot be resolved through the Pre-Action Protocol process, RAMS is prepared to ask the High Court to determine them.
Campaigners said if the matter cannot be resolved through the pre-action protocol process, then they will prepare a claim seeking permission for a judicial review of the council's decision in the High Court.
The group set up a crowdfunding page to help fund the pre-action protocol stage of the review. Should the case proceed beyond that stage, the group expects to set up a second appeal to cover the costs of court proceedings.
Supporters of Kirby Hill RAMS at the MSA site, pictured a few years ago.
The council’s strategic planning committee gave final approval for the motorway services at a meeting on July 21.
Councillor Robert Windass, who represents Boroughbridge and Claro, said he stood by previous comments describing the scheme as the “rape of the countryside”.
He added:
We’ve got prime agricultural land there which is being ruined forever. We’re going to put a petrol filling station that is not particularly required — there is one just down the road.
Other councillors said they did not like the plans but could see no reasons to disagree with the officer’s recommendation to approve the scheme.
The application was approved by nine votes to five with one abstention.
The decision came after a series of public inquiries and planning battles held up the development.
In a saga which has spanned more than a quarter of a century, Applegreen’s application has been before multiple council planning committees, faced four public inquiries and seen appeals turned down twice by the Secretary of State and the High Court.
The inquiry, which was held by planning inspector David Rose in 2021 and streamed onto YouTube, lasted two weeks and included multiple testimonies from residents, campaigners and developer Applegreen.
In a decision notice, Mr Rose said after considering the evidence that the benefits of a service station would outweigh the harm.
0