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02
Mar
Masham homes decision delayed due to tree concerns
Masham residents will have to wait to hear whether controversial plans to build 46 homes will be approved.
North Yorkshire Council's Skipton and Ripon area planning committee was due to meet at 1pm tomorrow (Tuesday, March 3) to determine the application.
But the meeting was postponed at late notice due to the late submission last Wednesday of an objection from the council’s arboricultural officer.
The officer points out that the tree survey, published in January 2022, is out of date, and raises several concerns about deficiencies in the information available about trees on the site and measures to protect them.
The postponement may prolong the agony for some Masham residents, since Loxley Homes (Masham) first submitted its application three-and-a-half years ago. But others may see it as a reprieve, and a further chance to marshal opposition to the plans, which have been recommended for approval.
Flooding worries
Several local residents have spoken to the Stray Ferret about their concerns, and in particular about the possibility of flooding.
Resident Annette Sped, who lives near the site, told the Stray Ferret:
The field they want to build on doesn’t just get damp; it turns into a basin of standing water. Because the land drops away steeply, every drop is driven straight toward the houses below.
The people living at the bottom of that slope aren’t just worried… they’re bracing if this development goes ahead.
Drainage plans
The seasonal flooding affects a wide area. According to a diagram prepared by contractor DART Engineers that details the proposed offsite drainage works, 10 of the planned houses fall wholly or partially within the area that currently floods.
The planning application incorporates “associated foul and surface water drainage infrastructure”, and includes plans for drainage into an “attenuation basin” on the far side of Swinton Road. This would “accommodate the flooding from the proposed site and the adjacent field” and then discharge it into Swinney Beck.
The developer has plans to drain the area.
But another resident, who declined to be named, said:
They obviously have plans to move the flooding elsewhere, but I don’t think it will necessarily solve the problem.
The amount of homes they’re planning to build, with all the hard landscaping that will involve, will make matters worse at the back of that field. It has the potential to move the problem into the gardens of the homes on Swinburn Road that back onto it.
One of the people who fears her home is at risk is Anne Smith, who lives on Swinburn Road and whose garden faces onto the site. She said:
They’re trying to add two houses with two gardens at the back of my house. But who’s going to be responsible if our gardens flood?
I assume it’ll devalue our house too. You can’t sell a house with a view if there are two houses blocking the view. Some of the new houses have large windows directly facing us, so we’re not going to have any privacy either.
The view from Anne Smith's house.
Mitigation measures
Loxley Homes (Masham), which has applied for consent with the trustees of the Swinton Heirs' Trust, the trustees of William's Fund, Broadacres Housing Association and Mulberry Homes Yorkshire Ltd, has committed itself to mitigating measures in the form of a Section 106 agreement. This stipulates that 18 of the homes – 40% – would be affordable, five would be shared-ownership properties, but some residents feel that is not enough.
The resident who did not wish to be named said:
I wouldn’t say there shouldn’t be any homes built – I do recognise that we need more homes – but they’re planning to build too many, and they’re not the type we need.
There are lots of people who grew up in Masham and would like to stay here, and we should be catering for them, not building large, half-a-million-pound homes for people to buy from outside the town.
The Section 106 agreement also states that over £225,000 would be provided for off-site open space and its maintenance, and other, smaller sums would be provided for highways, health and biodiversity net gain monitoring.
Nevertheless, the planning application has received 56 comments from the public, 52 of them objections.
They include concerns about the growth of the town and the lack of planning for upgrades to infrastructure such as roads, sewerage, healthcare and schooling.
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