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30
Dec
No. 4: Fear and anxiety over North Yorkshire’s housebuilding drive
In this article, which is part of a series on the 12 stories in the Harrogate district that shaped 2025, we look at the government's drive to build more homes and its impact on North Yorkshire.
“They’ve opened the floodgates,” one campaigner told the Stray Ferret as he criticised the lack of barriers to speculative housebuilding in his area.
He was one of many who spoke to us this year about housing — in particular the Labour government’s drive to build more homes, new housing targets and the lack of a Local Plan in North Yorkshire.
The absence of a Local Plan, which would set out where housing can be built over the next 20 years, makes it hard for North Yorkshire Council to resist planning applications.
With housing secretary Steve Reed’s calling on developers to “build, baby, build”, there is widespread concern about uncontrolled development.
Talking with business leaders at a Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce meeting in January, Richard Flinton, chief executive of the council, admitted it was fearful over developers tabling speculative plans which they would be unable to resist.
This followed the Labour government's decision to more than triple North Yorkshire’s housingbuilding target to 4,156 homes a year — it had previously been 1,361.
(Left to right) Karl Battersby, Cllr Carl Les and Richard Flinton at the Harrogate District Chamber of Commerce meeting.
From the government’s perspective, the move was necessary to tackle a housing crisis which it believes has gone on for too long.
But, as Mr Flinton put it, the policy has heightened concerns the council will be powerless to resist any speculative applications that come their way.
He said:
My anxiety is that we want that plan-led approach. At the moment with the housing targets and where we are with the Local Plan, there’s a very real prospect that we have a number of years where we do not have a plan basis to resist speculative applications.
So they [the applications] would be made and maybe get turned down by councillors on a committee and then they’re appealed and we struggle to resist the appeal because of where we are in that process.
An attempt to come to a transitional arrangement with government whereby it could refuse speculative schemes while it puts a 20-year housing plan in place was turned down by ministers.
Villagers pictured in the one of the fields earmarked for housing near Boroughbridge.
This political wrangling has left residents more concerned than ever about “speculative” developments, especially as the council cannot demonstrate a five-year land supply.
In the last 12 months, applications have been submitted for land in Killinghall, Boroughbridge and Harrogate, to name but a few.
It has become common to see bright green notices strapped to lampposts notifying of a new housing scheme.
Campaign groups have been set up to oppose developments, such as three housing schemes near Langthorpe and Kirby Hill, which would see 487 homes built.
Mike Wilkinson and Libby Ben Abdessadak with their petition against more homes in Killinghall.
Some campaigners have little time for the government’s rhetoric, such as “‘build baby, build” and “beat the blockers”, which they see as infantile use of language.
Many residents have genuine concerns that the schemes proposed do not have the best interest of local people at heart.
Councillors are worried they won't be able to refuse schemes.
Until a new Local Plan is in place — and there appears little prospect of it anytime soon — concerns are likely to linger.
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