A long-running row over an airfield between two villages looks set to erupt again after campaigners compared council planners to the Keystone Cops and insisted stricter controls need to be exerted over the site.
However, Bagby Airfield’s owner has dismissed campaign group Action4Refusal’s claims that Hambleton District Council is not in control of developments at the 44-acre site near Thirsk and has described its planning officers as professional and thorough.
The airfield has been the focus of a bitter dispute between some residents of Bagby and nearby Thirkleby and Mr Scott for more than a decade and has led to several public inquiries and an ombudsman’s finding of maladministration with injustice being reached against the council for losing planning control of the airfield.
Since the council approved Martin Scott’s plan to modernise the airfield in 2019, the authority has issued the solicitor with breach of condition notices.
Action4Refusal said Mr Scott had “carried on completely regardless of Hambleton”, building a bigger aircraft hangar than he was given permission for and a new access road in the wrong place.
The group said a system in which the public could monitor aircraft flights at the airfield, which was key to the airfield revamp getting planning permission, had not been launched.
A spokesman for the campaign group said: “Hambleton is not doing anything effective. The microlights have disappeared and it’s a commercial operation right next to the A19 and a children’s playground.
“The owner has basically thumbed his nose at Hambleton council and they are left looking rather like Keystone Cops. We’re looking at taking it to the Local Government Ombudsman because they are not doing anything significant like take it down the magistrates court, which is what they should do. They will again be found to have failed the residents because they haven’t regained any control at all.
“There’s no monitoring and he has got himself a runway for big planes, so the situation is far worse than it has ever been.”
Mr Scott said he was submitting fresh planning applications as a contractor had built the access road in the wrong place and as the hangar had been extended by six metres. He said: “It is just a construction site at the moment, so obviously things will have to be dealt with.”
He said radar monitoring which could identify all aircraft in the area was up and running and real-time cameras were being installed over the runway this week would, meaning the airfield would have a system that was completely transparent to the public when flights resumed after lockdown.
Mr Scott said it was frustrating that Action4Refusal chose not to attend meetings about the development that had been organised by the council.
He said: “Hambleton’s officers are very professional. They don’t let me off anything and send me some very hard letters.”
In response to Action4Refusal’s claims, the council’s chief planning officer Jon Berry, said the authority had issued notices to the airfield’s owner requiring the development to follow the approved scheme.
He said: “The council is ready to take action if the notices are breached, that could involve court action.
“A Joint Consultative Committee has been established, invitations are issued to the parish councils for Bagby and Thirkleby as well as Action4Refusal, to provide a forum for dialogue regarding the management of the airfield.”
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