Children’s holiday firm PGL has been hit with enforcement action after breaching planning conditions to protect residents of an isolated village from noise, even before a controversial activities centre to host up to 550 children at a time has opened.
It has emerged Hambleton District Council served PGL with a Breach of Condition Notice on August 4 for failing to keep to the set 56 hours a week for the redevelopment of grade II listed Newby Wiske Hall, near Northallerton, following neighbours complaining about excessive out of hours disturbances.
The council has stated PGL, which is aiming to launch the centre in the spring, had no right to appeal to against the notice, which would be effective immediately and must be fully complied with within a month.If a development continues to breach the operating hours after the month, councils can prosecute developers for failure to comply.
In response, PGL has lodged a planning application to extend the working hours at the site by 90 minutes for five days a week.
A PGL spokesman said it was complying with the planning notice as required.
He said: “The link between our sites and their local communities is vitally important to us. At PGL, we work hard across the country to ensure our sites are an economic and cultural asset to their surrounding communities. In our Newby Wiske centre, we are working very closely with residents and the local authority to minimise disruption during this exciting renovation.”
Residents of the village have spent years battling against the planned holiday centre following North Yorkshire Police selling its long-time headquarters, saying noise nuisance from children and coaches will ruin the isolated village’s tranquility.
While PGL says it has moved to ensure it has rectified the working hours and delivery breaches, residents claim breaches have continued, pointing to how a skip wagon had rumbled up to the hall’s gates on August 9 at 6.50am, more than an hour before the earliest delivery should arrive.
Objecting to the extended working hours, resident David Smith said the limits had been set to protect residents from excessive traffic entering the site and to reduce noise, but PGL had repeatedly exceeded the limits on both traffic and length of hours working on the site.
Dr Smith said: “They have had repeated warnings and have been given a final warning. To allow this application would legitimise their rule breaking and be detrimental to the village and villagers of Newby Wiske.”
One Newby Wiske resident, who asked not to be identified, said it was feared the apparent lack of regard PGL had shown to planning rules designed to protect the amenity of residents would be the shape of things to come when the centre opened.
She added: “The neighbours are not happy about extending working hours at all. It’s the middle of summer and all you can hear is the beep beep of vehicles reversing.
“Hambleton gave PGL more working hours than they might have been expecting to get from the outset and the fact that the site is packed up for the weekend by 11 on a Friday morning, it’s a bit of a cheek of a cheek asking for extra hours when they could do an extra 13 hours if they stayed and worked Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.”
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