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Jan 2024
Looking ahead: Major projects in the Harrogate district in 2024
The past 12 months have seen major decisions made on development across the Harrogate district.
However, there are some schemes which remain uncertain and 2024 may hold the answer as to whether they progress or continue to stall.
Maltkiln
The last 12 months have been a whirlwind for the new settlement project which promises up to 3,000 near Green Hammerton and Cattal.
However, in January, news broke that a landowner had pulled out of the project threatening the scheme’s existence.
The landowner owns fields around Cattal train station, making up around half of the proposed site.
Now, North Yorkshire Council, which took over responsibility for the major housing scheme in April, has threatened to compulsory purchase land as a “last resort” so the 4,000-home Maltkiln settlement can be built.
Whether the authority follows through on that pledge is a development to keep an eye out for in 2024.
Harrogate Convention Centre
Perhaps one of the biggest question going into the new year is what will happen to the long promised Harrogate Convention Centre redevelopment?
North Yorkshire Council inherited a £49 million refurbishment scheme for the convention centre on Kings Road from the now defunct Harrogate Borough Council in April.
However, it has yet to decide whether to progress with the project.
Harrogate Convention Centre.
A contractor has been appointed to draw up more detailed plans for the redevelopment and a final decision was expected this year.
The convention centre opened in 1982 with conferences providing a boost to the town’s bars, restaurants and hotels, however, it has struggled to turned a profit.
The council failed in bids to the government’s Levelling Up Fund for £20 million to help pay for the project - the latest of which was turned down in November.
A previous bid, which was rejected in January, received feedback from ministers stating that it lacked evidence and rationale and may have over-stated the economic benefits.
Government feedback on the bid, released following a freedom of information request by the Stray Ferret, revealed several areas of concerns with the bid.
This is despite the fact the council, which was abolished at the end of March, paid consultants £45,000 as part of its submission to ministers.
The whole saga leaves the future of the convention centre and its refurbishment uncertain and a decision on it being pushed into another year.
Ripon’s Clotherholme development
One of the last acts of Harrogate Borough Council before it was scrapped in April 2023 was to approve a major 1,300 housing scheme on a former Ripon barracks site.
Homes England, which has been developing the plans for several years alongside the Ministry of Defence, has earmarked the Clotherholme site for new homes and facilities.
It was approved in February 2023, just over a month before the council was scrapped.
Read more:
- New settlement plans ‘paused’ after land withdrawn near Cattal
- Concern over lack of secondary school at new Harrogate district town
- Government says council’s £20m bid for Harrogate Convention Centre lacked ‘evidence and rationale’
Since then, a total of £10 million has been budgeted to cover items in a Section 106 agreement for the project.
The money will fund a number of areas, including off-site highway adjustments and contributions towards primary and secondary education provision and primary healthcare.
Now, residents in Ripon and the wider district await for the news that spades will hit the ground.
Kirby Hill services
The 25-year saga which is Kirby Hill took another turn in 2023.
Dublin-based company Applegreen, which wants to build a motorway service station near the village, tabled final plans for the project.
The proposals were approved in September - however, campaigners threatened to take the decision to a judicial review.
Designs for the service station near Kirby Hill, as proposed by Applegreen.
Applegreen, which is based in Dublin, applied for amendments to the proposal, including an extension to the length of the slip roads and increasing the permissible height of the eastern dumbbell roundabout by up to 1.25 metres.
But, Gareth Owens, chair of the Kirby Hill RAMS, said the move amounted to “significant change” to the scheme and confirmed the campaign group would challenge the approval.
It seems the saga which has been a quarter of a century in the making may yet go on for another year.
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