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06
Oct
Expanded £3.8m Beckwithshaw roundabout set for approval
A plan to build a new roundabout at Beckwithshaw three times the size of the current one has been recommended for approval.
North Yorkshire Council has applied to build the new roundabout at Pot Bank, where Otley Road meets the edge of Moor Park estate.
The council tabled the proposal in October 2025 to cope with increased traffic caused by new housing developments in the area.
According to planning documents, the scheme is expected to cost £3.8 million to build.
Now, the plan is set to go before a strategic planning committee meeting in Northallerton on October 13, where council officers have recommended that the plan be granted planning permission.
Designs for the new roundabout at Beckwithshaw.
The scheme will be one of many highways projects commissioned in the area as part of £37 million worth of improvements funded by Section 106 contributions from housing developers.
In a report due before councillors next week, Jessica Harrison, planning case officer at the council, said the roundabout would help to increase capacity at the junction.
She said:
The application proposes to replace an uncontrolled mini roundabout with a new conventional three-arm roundabout, with pedestrian crossings, street lighting, speed limit changes, surface water drainage and landscaping.
The proposed scheme has been designed to improve road safety and increase the capacity at the junction.
The new roundabout is planned to measure 37 metres across, and the extra land required would be taken from a field immediately to the north.
Thirteen trees would need to be removed – some of which arboricultural consultants say are diseased – and would be replaced by 30 saplings of various species, not all of them native.
The roundabout will be jointly funded by the developers of housing schemes in the west of Harrogate.
More than 4,000 new homes are planned for the west of Harrogate. Credit - HAPARA
The move to build the roundabout comes as the west of Harrogate is expected to see 4,000 new homes built in the coming years.
Multiple schemes are being built or awaiting planning permission in the area, including schemes on Otley Road, Whinney Lane and Yew Tree Lane.
Much of the housing was earmarked for the area in the Harrogate District Local Plan, which assessed a need for 16,077 new homes in the district up to 2035.
It means the west of Harrogate was projected to take nearly a quarter of the entire district's housing need.
However, a new North Yorkshire Local Plan, which will supersede the Harrogate plan, is currently being drawn and will identify land to accommodate new homes, jobs and associated infrastructure in the region over the next 20 years.
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