08
Dec 2024
Harrogate Town Plan Forum to fill 'planning void' with volunteer power
More than 30 people turned out on a cold, dark night last week to take part in the newly established Harrogate Town Plan Forum.
The forum has been convened to fill what organisers describe as a “planning void” left by the abolition of Harrogate Borough Council. They say a local body is needed to help take care of the town’s heritage, and their aim is to put together an enforceable Neighbourhood Plan to guide the proposed new Harrogate Town Council, whose remit would be the 'unparished' area of Harrogate: the centre and its immediate surrounds.
Attendees at the event in the United Reformed Church on West Park included retailers, planning professionals, architects, landlords and councillors, as well as representatives from Harrogate Civic Society, Harrogate BID (business improvement district) and Zero Carbon Harrogate.
Speaking as attendees split into groups to discuss different topics, forum secretary Paul Hatherley told the Stray Ferret:
This is the interesting bit. We’re now starting to explore the issues that are important to local people.
We'll use the information we get through these working groups to examine key issues to develop the Neighbourhood Plan.
If we leave it to North Yorkshire Council, it’s going to be just one plan for the whole of North Yorkshire.
Chair Stuart Holland added:
You could have planners in Selby deciding what happens here. It would be a nonsense.
The meeting started with a presentation by Jonathan Foggitt, senior land and development manager at estate agent Linley & Simpson. He made the point that most of the existing sites earmarked for housing developments fall outside the forum’s area, largely because there are very few sites available for major housing schemes within the area boundary.
He therefore proposed that the focus of a neighbourhood plan should be on the impact and infrastructure needs within the area as a result of more housing surrounding the town.
This, he said, was important in light of government housing targets, which in North Yorkshire translate into an increase from the current housing requirement of 1,361 new houses a year to 4,332.
He said:
We cannot prevent development – there is a need for it. So we need instead to focus on shaping that development.
As an example, he suggested that the strain on Harrogate’s road system caused by new developments surrounding the town could potentially be alleviated by the introduction of a fleet of new hopper buses serving the main arterial routes into and out of the centre: Skipton Road, Otley Road, Wetherby Road and Knaresborough Road.
He also suggested that these and any other measures to alleviate infrastructure strain could be funded by the community infrastructure levy (CIL) that developers have to pay.
Mr Foggitt ended his presentation by putting four questions to guide the breakout session:
- What are the pressures on Harrogate as a result of development outside of the neighbourhood plan area?
- What improvements or changes are needed to accommodate development and protect Harrogate?
- What standards do we want development to achieve?
- Within the Neighbourhood Plan area, are there any development opportunities to pursue or manage?
The group sessions themselves produced many questions of their own. One attendee asked:
Why does Yorkshire Water not object if new housing will overload sewers and there is a time delay to get the necessary infrastructure in place?
Another asked:
What employment opportunities are there to support the increase in housing numbers if they result in more people coming to live in the town?
Also under discussion were issues such as the style of development the council should insist on; the need to attract and retain young people in the town; the problem of parking if more former business premises are converted to residential dwellings in the town centre; and others.
By the end of the session, the forum had created working groups to look in more detail at three core topics: the economy, transport and housing.
Mr Holland said:
All these are interconnected, but we must tackle them individually, and then see where the overlaps are, and how the different areas impact on each other.
He said more volunteers were needed to “delve deeper into the issues”.
Further forum meetings are planned, and organisers aim to initiate discussion on further topics, such as heritage, the natural environment (including spa water and tourism), sustainability (including climate mitigation and adaptation) and health and wellbeing.
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