120-home Knaresborough development to begin this month

Work is set to begin this month to build 120 homes in Knaresborough after Yorkshire Housing purchased the site from Gladman Developments.

The 18-acre site on Boroughbridge Road is allocated for development in Harrogate Borough Council’s Local Plan and planning permission was granted in August last year, despite objections.

Yorkshire Housing, which is a housing association, hopes the two, three, and four-bedroom homes will begin to be ready in January next year.

Andy Gamble, director of development at Yorkshire Housing, said:

“The 120 new homes will be mixed tenure and will provide homes for shared ownership, affordable rent, rent-to-buy and market sale.

“We want to continue creating new communities that bring more, much-needed homes to Yorkshire where our customers are proud to live and call home.”

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Scriven Parish Council said the homes would result in “saturation” for Knaresborough and its facilities when the plans were submitted.

The objection said:

“Knaresborough is under tremendous pressure and the historic market town, which all the residents recognise and enjoy, is being destroyed by over development.”

Former Yorkshire pub of the year could be turned into a home

A former winner of the Yorkshire Pub of the Year title could be turned into a five-bedroom home.

The Crown Inn pub in Great Ouseburn won the prize at the White Rose Awards in 2011 but plans have now been submitted to convert it into a family home.

The proposals include four first-floor bedrooms, two with en suites, as well as a guest room on the ground floor. There would also be a cinema room and a single garage, with the proposals including creating a two-storey extension.

The full details can be viewed on the planning section of the Harrogate Borough Council website, using reference 20/04342/FUL.

The pub has been vacant for several years, closing in June 2016. The village, which is five miles from Boroughbridge, is currently served by one pub, the Lime Tree on Branton Lane.

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In October plans were submitted to convert the Green Tree pub in nearby Little Ouseburn into housing. The pub, which is on the main B6265 from Green Hammerton to Boroughbridge, closed in late 2019.

Ripon housing development on old industrial site refused

Harrogate Borough Council has refused a 13-home development in Ripon city centre due to its impact on local heritage.

Red Tree Developments wanted to demolish buildings at the site of the former NY Timber yard to build the homes.

The site on Trinity Lane was home to a timber yard from 1860 to 2018.

Red Tree bought the 0.64-acre plot, which is adjacent to the listed buildings, Holy Trinity Church of England Junior School and St Wilfrid’s Catholic Church, from Cairngorm Capital for an undisclosed sum this year.

In the planning application, the developer said the timber yard, which is not listed, must be replaced due to its “poor state of repair”:

“In order to create a high-quality residential scheme which achieves all of the required standards it is essential that the building is replaced.”

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The building in 1929.

However, Christopher Hughes, chairman of the Ripon Civic Society objected to the plans and said the structure should be retained due to its historical importance.

He said:

“It’s an important survival of Ripon’s industrial heritage and its importance is underestimated and in this application totally overlooked.”

The council’s chief planner John Worthington refused the plans which he said would cause “unacceptable harm” to the Ripon Conservation Area. He also criticised the plans for offering no affordable homes.

The Stray Ferret asked Red Tree Developments for a response but we did not receive one at the time of publication.

‘We couldn’t afford to buy a home in Knaresborough’

In previous generations, getting on the housing ladder for a young couple with steady incomes was a given.

But in today’s housing crisis, it’s a pipe dream for too many people, particularly in high-value areas like Knaresborough and Harrogate.

Married Knaresborough couple Steph Getao, 32 and Scott Gibson 35, spent three years looking for their perfect property in Knaresborough and Harrogate — but failed to find one within their budget.

It forced them to look further afield and they recently purchased a two-bedroom house with a conservatory and garden in Allerton Bywater, a village south-east of Leeds.

At £175,000, Steph said the home was much cheaper than similar properties locally.

Scott works for an electrical manufacturer in Boroughbridge and Steph works in an office in Harrogate. Steph told the Stray Ferret it was “upsetting” that they couldn’t buy a home closer to Scott’s hometown.

She said:

“We both love it here. He has his childhood friends here. It was so depressing. It was either get what you can in Knaresborough or Harrogate or have a choice and look further afield.”

According to property website Rightmove, the average property price in Knaresborough last year was £320,000

In new housing developments, Harrogate Borough Council demands that 40% of all homes are classed as “affordable”.

The government defines affordable as homes sold at a discounted rate, homes for social rent, or through shared ownership schemes.

Steph dismissed shared ownership schemes as a “different face of renting” and questioned how “affordable” these homes really are.

“An affordable home was £200,000 plus. I don’t understand what they mean by affordable. You can’t put that amount of money down and call it affordable.”

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Steph is a director of Knaresborough Community Land Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that is hoping to develop a disused area in the town centre into three flats as affordable housing.

Such initiatives provide small scale solutions. But for Knaresborough to flourish, Steph says the town needs young people to stay and put down roots.

She added:

“Without young people, Knaresborough will get more and more sleepy. The high street is basically all old dear shops! Knaresborough needs its young.

“Scott’s parents and aunts all have houses locally, then you go to the next generation and we’ve all moved out of Knaresborough [due to house prices].

“You’ve got to do what’s best for your pocket, so we went Allerton Bywater. I wish we had more local people being able to purchase within Knaresborough. If we had an influx of young people, we’d see a change in the high street immediately.”

Harrogate sees biggest increase in new homes in 20 years

There was a net increase of 975 homes in Harrogate during 2019/20, the biggest increase in at least 20 years.

The latest figures were published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and show a sharp rise in new housing compared with previous years.

The figures go back to 2001/2 and cover new builds, conversions, changes of use, and demolitions.

in 2018/19 there was an increase of 682 and in 2017/18 it was 611 — but in the ten years prior the average figure was 291 homes a year.

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The figures show the impact of Harrogate’s Local Plan, finally adopted earlier this year after over a decade of wrangling. The plan calls for  637 homes to be built in the district every year until 2035.

Last week, the Stray Ferret published a major investigation that explored the impact of the Local Plan on the people living in Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon.

According to the Harrogate Borough Council Housing Strategy 2019-2024, Harrogate is the least affordable area in the north of England.

Spiralling house prices have affected people like Megan McHugh, 24, who has lived in Harrogate all her life. She told the Stray Ferret it’s “heartbreaking” that she cannot afford to buy a house in her hometown. 

She said:

“If you’re like me and you want to buy your own home in Harrogate, you’ve got absolutely no chance. I feel stuck.”

 

 

170 Knaresborough homes ‘catastrophic’ for Hay-a-Park wildlife

Plans for 170 homes on Water Lane in Knaresborough will have a ‘catastrophic’ impact on wildlife at nearby beauty spot Hay-a-Park, according to local people.

Landowner Geoffrey Holland’s application would see homes built on the north-eastern edge of the town, next to the Hay-a-Park lake and three smaller ponds.

The site, which is on a flooded former quarry, was designated as a site of special scientific interest in 1995 because it supports a number of rare birds, including the goosander and reed warbler.

The planning application has provoked a passionate response from residents, with about 60 objections at the time of publication. Several raised concerns about the impact of the housing on hedgerows within the SSSI where birds nest.

David Bunting, who lives next to the lake, told the Stray Ferret he has concerns about flooding and the impact on the birds’ habitat:

“This housing would go right up to the lake and risks huge environmental damage to the site. Birds have come from across the world to nest here over winter for thousands of years.”

Goosander fears

Another local resident, James McKay, highlighted a report from 2012 which stated numbers of goosander have been decreasing. He told the Stray Ferret:

“It will have a catastrophic impact on Hay-a-Park gravel pit, which is already under pressure from increased urbanisation.”

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Harrogate Borough Council refused an application from Mr Holland for 218 homes in October last year, despite the site being allocated for development in what was then the council’s draft Local Plan.

The council said the proposal did not include enough affordable housing and was ‘of poor quality and out of character with its surroundings’. It also said it did not include a proper assessment that explored the impact of housing on the SSSI.

A planning statement submitted for the new application said the proposals included “a wide range of ecological enhancement measures”.

It added:

“The design-led approach, informed by consultation with the local planning authority and Natural England, responds sensitively to the site setting, respecting the urban grain and ecology features present in the surrounding landscape, both built and undeveloped.”

Minimise impact on birds

Following the refusal last year, ecological consultancy Baker Consultants produced a Hay-a-Park SSSI impact assessment on behalf of the developer. It recommends that Harrogate Borough Council and Natural England manage the SSSI’s grassland and woodland to improve biodiversity.

A separate ecological appraisal recommended the impact on birds is minimised through the creation of green space within the development and with nest boxes.

It also says construction that might directly impact breeding birds should be limited to September to February when they do not breed.

The Stray Ferret asked the agent for the application, Cunnard Town Planning, for a statement but we had not received a response at the time of publication.

The application will be considered by HBC’s planning committee at a later date.

Plans to turn Bishop Monkton pub into five houses

There are new plans to turn a village pub in Bishop Monkton, south of Ripon, into five houses.

If the plans get the go-ahead the Lamb and Flag, on Boroughbridge Road, could soon make way for more housing in the area.

The pub would be converted into two homes, the existing bed and breakfast would be converted into one house and the developers would also build two new houses on the rear car park.

Bishop Monkton, which the Domesday Book refers to as the “Tun of the monks,” has seen an increase in residential development over the last 50 years.

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The Lamb and Flag is a “building of interest” and sits next to listed buildings. However, the planning application says the harm to those buildings would be “less than substantial.”

Developers also say in the plans that the design of the new houses will retain the character of the original pub and the core of the building.

Harrogate Borough Council formally acknowledged the planning application last Friday. There’s no date set for when it will be heard.

Despite new developments and growing populations, village pubs have found it difficult to survive.

Nearby Burton Leonard lost a pub in recent years. The Hare and Hounds was also replaced by housing.

Housing Investigation: infrastructure at breaking point?

The Local Government Association says it “can’t be emphasised strongly enough” that quality infrastructure must be the starting point of any good Local Plan. 

But Harrogate didn’t have a Local Plan for six years. Thousands of homes were built, yet there was no strategic plan for vital services such as schools and healthcare. 

Mike Newall lives in a cottage on Whinney Lane – until recently, a quiet rural street on the west side of Harrogate. 

The Pannal Ash area is now though surrounded by new development and faces the prospect of thousands of new homes over the next few years – changing the face of where he lives forever. 

He is clear that both Harrogate Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council have so far failed to ensure that residents will be able to access vital services when the housing is eventually built and asks: 

“Where is the social infrastructure?

“Apart from a new primary school on Whinney Lane, where are the thousands of new residents going to get GP and dentist visits? Local surgeries and dentists are full. A normal appointment at Mowbray Square medical centre takes two to three weeks. 

“It goes to show that prior to HBC having a local plan, the council were hobbled and exposed.”  

Schools places 

Harrogate Grammar School, St Aidan’s and St John Fisher are some of the highest-rated comprehensive secondary schools in the north of England. 

The growing number of homes in the area has made the scramble for school places even more competitive, with high value placed on homes within the catchment area. 

A freedom of information request submitted by the Stray Ferret to North Yorkshire County Council reveals that every secondary school in the district is heavily oversubscribed, and the situation deteriorated from 2018-2020. 

Similarly, primary school places are at a premium. The data reveals 55 of the district’s 71 primary schools were oversubscribed for 2020. 

New primary schools have been included in plans at Whinney Lane in Pannal Ash and Manse Farm in Knaresborough, but in many cases where there are large housing developments planned, no new schools are proposed and the local primary schools are oversubscribed.

There are developments underway in the Kingsley Road and Granby triangle, as well as the Bellway and Persona developments on Skipton Road, with hundreds of homes between them. 

There are several primary schools in the area that could educate children from the new developments- all are oversubscribed, including: 

Doctors’ surgeries 

While a scramble for school places could affect Harrogate’s youngest residents’ start in life, a rapidly ageing population means there will also be a greater demand on the district’s health services. 

From the beginning of the Local Plan period in 2014, HBC forecasts a 54% increase in the local population of people aged over 65 by 2035 –that’s 18,720 more people– which will put GP practices in the district under increased pressure. 

But other than Homes England’s 1,300-home development at Ripon Barracks, none of the major developments with planning permission in the district proposes to build new healthcare facilities to accommodate them. 

There are currently 17 GP surgeries in Harrogate, Ripon, Knaresborough and the district’s villages. 

But a 2020 NHS survey of GP practices found that the district’s practices did not score well for patients wanting to get a prompt appointment with their GP. 

Read more of our housing investigation:

Just 44% of patients at Beech House surgery in Harrogate said they were able to speak to their GP when they wanted to. At Leeds Road surgery, that number fell to 39%. 

A spokesperson for NHS North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), in charge of healthcare provision for the district, said: 

“North Yorkshire CCG is actively involved in discussions with the planning department at Harrogate [Borough] Council on all the large scale housing developments in the district so that the impact on local health services is taken into account and any appropriate funding is secured that can be used to provide additional clinical capacity within primary care.” 

Following a recommendation from the government’s planning inspector, Harrogate Borough Council is currently developing a “Parameters Plan” for the Western side of Harrogate, where 4,000 more homes are mooted. 

The intention is to consider sites as a whole in terms of infrastructure, public transport and sustainability, rather than a piece meal approach. But it’s been delayed which has left local residents group HAPARA very concerned. 

Developers avoided paying for infrastructure

One reason why so little appears to be done to improve infrastructure is developers have been able to get away without making enough financial contributions – thanks, in part to a lack of a Local Plan, which has weakened the council’s hand with developers.

With no Local Plan, it meant HBC had no roadmap for how the new housing would impact on infrastructure in the district. It meant developers were able to fall back on national planning policy which says a development “should not be subject to such a scale of obligations and policy burdens that their ability to be developed viably is threatened”.

As a normal condition of planning permission, the council asks developers to sign what is called a section 106 agreement to help pay for infrastructure that residents will use. 

For schools, the money could pay for bigger classrooms or more equipment.

But the Stray Ferret has learned through a freedom of information request that since 2014, Harrogate Borough Council has collected just £2.6m in payments from developers to help pay for schools, roads, health or public transport to cover the whole district.

Dr Quinton Bradley, senior lecturer in planning and housing at Leeds Beckett University, said developers in Harrogate have been able to use these viability assessments to argue their way out of paying.

Whereas if HBC had a Local Plan with a clear focus on infrastructure, it would have been more difficult for developers to do this.

He said:

“It’s money that should have come from developers and landowners, but the public taxpayer has to compensate because the developers didn’t pay it.”

The situation is so serious that the council has requested government introduces a Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to supplement Section 106 agreements. This is because the council has identified a £98m shortfall until 2035 to pay for infrastructure, including £42m for schools. 

The cumulative effect of having no Local Plan has been significant, and it’s meant schools and healthcare facilities in the district have lost out on additional funds to service a rapidly growing population. 

 

If you have any comments on our housing series or are personally affected in any way get in touch on contact@thestrayferret.co.uk 

 

Housing Investigation: New homes out of reach for too many locals

In the six years Harrogate had no Local Plan, housing developers were able to flood the market with expensive four and five bedroom homes. 

It meant an opportunity to address Harrogate’s housing needs was missed and the district remains unaffordable for many young people and those on lower incomes, such as key workers.  

Megan’s Story: 

Megan McHugh

Megan McHugh, 24, has lived in Harrogate all her life and said it’s “heartbreaking” that she cannot afford to buy a house in her hometown. 

She has £20,000 in savings, earns a decent salary as a team leader at a local supermarket and is careful with how she spends her money.  

But she said she feels “stuck” living at her parents’ house, with her dream of owning a home further and further out of reach because the local market isn’t providing the type of home she needs at a price she can afford. 

“I always say this time next year I’d like to be in my own place,” she said. “Then I work it out and think I physically can’t afford it. I’d go tomorrow if I could, but I can’t.” 

Megan said she gets frustrated when she sees housing developments built in Harrogate with so many four– and five-bedroom houses.  

“It’s an affluent area so they want to bring more affluent people into the area and make Harrogate look better,” she added. 

“But if you’re like me and you want to buy your own home in Harrogate, you’ve got absolutely no chance. I feel stuck.” 

What types of homes are needed?  

When a developer builds on a patch of land, 40% of the homes must be classed as “affordable”. But because HBC had no Local Plan up to 2020, it was unable to dictate to developers the types of homes needed for the remaining 60%, which led to a flood of executive-style four-and five–bedroom properties being built. 

Harrogate published a Housing and Economic Development Needs Assessment (HEDNA) report in 2018 outlining the types of houses are needed in the Harrogate district. 

It reported a “notable” demand in the district for one- and two-bedroom properties, with estate agents suffering from a shortage in stock, which it said was driving up prices. 

It also said four-bedroom properties and above should only take up 20-35% of the homes in development. 

But the HEDNA report was published four years after Harrogate’s draft Local Plan was withdrawn, and in that time more than 6,000 homes had been given planning permission. 

The Stray Ferret analysed the period when Harrogate went without a Local Plan and found that house builders were building far more four- and five-bedroom homes than the report said the district needed. 

These include Miller Homes’ 176-home Milby Grange development in Boroughbridge, where 45% of the properties are either four– or five–bedroom, and Bellway’s 170-home Dalesway development on Skipton Road, where 43% had four bedrooms or more.  

Affordable housing 

While developers cashed in to build expensive four-and five–bedroom homes in the district, Harrogate Borough Council has largely ensured affordable houses make up 40% of developments. 

However, many of these homes are still not affordable in most normal people’s definition of the word. 

The government defines affordable as homes sold at 80% of the market rate or homes for social rent. 

But with the average house price in Harrogate £360,000, according to property website Zoopla, it means that an “affordable” property in Harrogate is still more than 10 times the average salary of £25,000. 

Then there is social housing, which are homes provided to people on low incomes or with particular needs by councils or housing associations.

The council has around 1,800 households on its social housing waiting list  — but in Harrogate, less than one in ten applicants are likely to be allocated a property each year. This waiting list has swelled as Right to Buy sales have depleted HBC of its housing stock.

To try to meet demand, the council recently spent £4.5m buying 52 homes in Stonebridge Homes’ 130-home development on Whinney Lane. 

Sixteen of the homes would be transferred to HBC’s housing company, Bracewell Homes, to be sold under shared ownership, and the rest would be made available for social rent. The council has said similar purchases could be forthcoming. 

“You need people of all ages to keep a place alive”

The Knaresborough Community Land Trust (CLT) is hoping to develop a disused area in the town centre to provide three flats as affordable housing. 

Hilary Gardner, treasurer at the CLT, said many young people are being forced to move to places like Leeds because they simply cannot afford to buy a place in Knaresborough. 

“It’s denying people the opportunity that was a given for their parents, providing they worked hard. 

“Being able to buy your own property when you’re in your 30s is important, isn’t it? 

“There are large properties being built in Knaresborough, but they are not for everyone.” 

The long–term effect on people not being able to afford homes could be profound in a town like Knaresborough, which could see its lifeblood disappear. She added: 

“You need a body of people of all ages to keep a place alive.” 

The Knaresborough Community Land Trust is hoping to develop a disused area in the town centre to provide three flats as affordable housing.

Read More:

“We need homes to be distributed more fairly”

The proliferation of housebuilding in the district has largely been driven by central government, which wants to see 300,000 new homes built across the UK, with every region building its share. 

However, Dr Quinton Bradley, lecturer in housing and planning at Leeds Beckett University, told the Stray Ferret the government’s economic theory for housebuilding is “fundamentally flawed” because it’s led to an uneven and unequal housing market, as seen in Harrogate. 

“It’s not as simple as saying, ‘build more homes then the price will come down’…The house builders don’t want that, so that whole analysis is fundamentally flawed.

“The housing crisis is not a crisis of undersupply –, we need homes to be distributed more fairly.” 

Homes for ‘economic growth’ 

Harrogate’s 2018 HEDNA report concluded that the district needs 669 new homes to be built every year, yet it said only 296 of these homes are to serve the genuine housing need of the local population, which might be a young family trying to buy their first home or an elderly couple wanting to downsize. 

The report added that 314 of these 669 homes should be built for “economic growth”: attracting wealthy people into the town and into high-value jobs in the science, logistics and finance industries, which are the sectors Harrogate Borough Council wants to boost, according to the HEDNA report. 

However, Dr Bradley said building homes for economic growth is “basically wish fulfilment”. 

“Nobody knows how the economy will grow. The people writing the HEDNA report would have asked HBC, ‘how would you like Harrogate to be in the future?’  

“They’d say, ‘Well we’d like it to be really prosperous so let’s allocate some more housing for that’, but it’s a fantasy.” 

With development set to progress at its current pace for at least the next 15 years, the gulf between the housing haves and have-nots in Harrogate is likely to widen further. 

It means that Megan McHugh’s hopes of owning her own property in her hometown will continue to be out of reach. 

Throughout this week we’ll be looking at the impact of the unprecedented levels of development in the district:

Investigation: Harrogate targeted for development during planning chaos

An investigation by the Stray Ferret has uncovered how some of Britain’s biggest land promoters deliberately targeted Harrogate to exploit cheap land and high property prices.

Between 2014 and 2020 the district’s planning system was in disarray.

These failings made it easy for developers to get controversial housing schemes approved. The developers, knowing this, made speculative applications for thousands of homes across the district.

All this week, the Stray Ferret looks at the impact of six years of planning failings: thousands of extra cars on the roads, large detached houses prioritised over much-needed affordable homes for local people, and a lack of sustainable, environmentally friendly building.

Today, we examine how the Harrogate district became a target for opportunistic developers .

The draw of Harrogate

The Harrogate district is a prime place for money to be made in property.

It’s one of the most desirable places to live, often coming top in national property surveys. Just last month, Harrogate was named the ‘chic capital of the North’ by Tatler. It makes it very attractive to developers.

The latest figures put the average home at almost £360,000 – a whopping 13 times the average income for the district.

It is, according to the Harrogate Borough Council Housing Strategy 2019-2024, the least affordable area in the north of England.

It means home owning is out of reach for many low to middle income families caught in the Harrogate housing trap. There are more than 2,000 families in the district on the Housing Register living in unsuitable accommodation.

It’s not a question of Harrogate building too many properties. Rather, it’s too few of the right homes, in the right places, at the right price to meet local people’s need for affordable homes.

Planning failings

Every council has to put forward a 21-year plan to the Secretary of State for approval.The Planning Inspectorate examines local plans on the Secretary of State’s behalf to determine their suitability.

In 2014, the Planning Inspectorate advised Harrogate Borough Council  to withdraw its version of the Local Development Plan (or LDP 2014-2035).

The LDP sets out the council’s priorities and policies for land use. It defines where and how many homes can be built, where employment sites are located and what our town centre will become.

For a plan to be approved, it must demonstrate that it is well evidenced and meets local need. The plan must be in accordance with the National Planning Policy Framework and a raft of legislation, practice guidance and regulations.

Harrogate Borough Council withdrew its draft LDP at its first hearing on April 24, 2014, upon advice from the planning inspectorate.

The failed plan – years in the making – was deemed ‘inadequate’.

A letter from the Planning Inspectorate to Harrogate on April 29, 2014 explained that the evidence used in the plan was too out of date to be meaningful.

Harrogate was forced back to the drawing board.

Prior to its submission, Liberal Democrat leader councillor Pat Marsh had told the Yorkshire Post:

“I do not have confidence in anything to do with the plan, whether it be the actual allocation of homes, whether there is the necessary infrastructure in place to cope and how members will be able to decide on the final proposals which are still being finalised. I have been a councillor for 22 years, but I have never experienced anything quite like this. It is a complete shambles.”

Conservative councillor Alan Skidmore, who was appointed cabinet member for planning at HBC in 2012, publicly defended the plan at the time. Yet speaking to the Stray Ferret this year, he said he knew the plan that had been prepared was “absolute rubbish”.

“I was astonished. I delayed it as much as I could, much to the chagrin of certain planning officers. We were forced to submit it in the state it was in, because if we didn’t, the government would have taken steps against us.”

Houses under construction at Harlow Hill Grange in Harrogate

The local plan should have helped control where new housing was built

Land supply

Harrogate failed on another critical requirement. Councils must show that they have a supply of specific deliverable sites enough to provide five years’ worth of new housing (plus an appropriate buffer).

This is called the five-year land supply (5YLS).

In 2014, the council had more than two thousand families on the housing register.

Planning inspectors and developers surgically dissected Harrogate’s calculation that just 390 new market and affordable homes per annum was enough to meet housing need.

The figure had to be revised, and Harrogate employed a consultant, GL Hearn.

To meet the 5YLS, Harrogate had to find enough developers with land to deliver 1,050 completed homes a year.

As a result, the land earmarked for development within the plan was insufficient.

The perfect storm

Without an approved local plan and evidence of a five-year land supply, a condition called the ‘tilted balance in favour of presumption of approval’ was triggered which prioritised building houses.

In 2013, the Campaign for Rural England warned local government that a

“widespread failure to implement local plans left 175 local authorities (including Harrogate) vulnerable to ‘damaging development’”.

But the Federation of House Builders disagreed, saying:

‘‘Fears that the lack of a (local development) plan will lead to the untrammelled destruction of the countryside are overblown. Even where there is no Local Plan, development must still conform to the NPPF, which clearly sets out that development must be well located, well designed and sustainable.”

Harrogate Borough Council planners advised councillors from 2014 to 2018 that there was a ‘tilted balance’ in favour of approval on almost every major development regardless of whether the site was well located and sustainable.

For almost every major housing scheme, planning officers advised committee members to approve the application.

The planning committee did turn down some applications during that time, though, and the council successfully defended its decision at appeal.

A district vulnerable to promoters

Enter the land promoter: land promoters seek out land which could be ripe for housing and help the owner get outline planning permission before managing the onward sale to a developer.

In the Harrogate district, a hectare of agricultural land will fetch around £25,000 at the farmers’ auction.

As a development site with outline planning approval, the same land will realise between £1.2 and £2.3 million.

The promoter then takes a share of the land’s increased value when it’s sold.

Gladman Land is the promoter behind applications for nearly 1,500 properties in the district since 2014, including Harrogate, Boroughbridge, Killinghall and Knaresborough.

Co-founder David Gladman told the High Court in July 2016:

“We normally only target local authorities whose planning is in relative disarray and… either have no up-to-date local plan or, temporarily, they do not have a five-year supply of consented building plots.”

Even if the council refuses the application, it’s of no consequence.

Gladman Land stated that going to appeal was part of its business strategy, with a success rate of over 90%. They advertise themselves as one of the most successful land promoters in England.

It’s completely legal and was essentially a standard practice within the land promotion industry.

In 2016/17, Harrogate received the highest number of planning applications since records began.

Crofter's Green Killinghall

The development at Crofters Green, Killinghall, was one of those passed at appeal. Click here to read more.

Strengthening position

By January 2019, Harrogate could demonstrate a robust 5YLS which tilted the balance in a different direction.

Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee was advised to support an outline application by Gladman’s to build 175 houses on Bar Lane, Knaresborough.

The debate ran over several hours with councillors struggling to reach a consensus, despite officers’ recommendation to approve the proposal. Eventually, the committee deferred the application to planning officers to approve, subject to some details being finalised.

But just nine months later, on September 9, 2019, the same application returned to the planning committee who refused it against the advice of officers.

The advanced state of the local plan and a healthy 5YLS gave the planning committee the confidence to reject the proposal.

The local development plan was finally accepted by the planning inspectorate and adopted by HBC in May 2020 affording further protection against harmful development in the borough.

But the damage has been done to the fabric of our communities, and over the next week, the Stray Ferret will look at the impact that six years of planning dysfunction has had on the lives of local people.

Coming up

All this week, we look at the impact of a planning system in disarray.