A move to create a five-star touring caravan park beside a pig farm has been challenged amid claims the proposed site would have little to offer holiday-makers.
Objectors to a planning application lodged with North Yorkshire Council to convert grazing land into a site for up to 50 touring pitches and ten camping pitches off Thirsk Road, Easingwold, have questioned the developers’ claim that the caravan park is “within easy walking distance” of the market town.
The council stipulates that proposals for new tourist accommodation will be only be supported where it is demonstrated a site is accessible to local services and public utilities.
Justifying the proposed development in open countryside, planning documents claim “there is not another sizable touring caravan park within easy walking distance of Easingwold”.
The application states the site’s proximity to the town centre will make it “particularly attractive for visitors who want to go out to eat, drink or shop”.
It states as well as a footpath on Thirsk Road the edge of Easingwold is less than a 1km walk from the proposed site and the centre of the town is 1.6km away, which contains a number of pubs, restaurants, cafes and shops.
It adds a bridleway to Raskelf Road opposite the site leads to the BATA Garden
Centre and Brandsby’s café, which are within 900m of the proposed site, which national cycle routes run close by and can be accessed by a traffic-free route.
The application highlights research by the UK Caravan and Camping Alliance showing the caravan sector has a sizeable off-site spend of £63 per visitor per night into local economies and names a number of businesses in the town centre which have backed the venture.
The papers underline the park would be designed to meet the validation
criteria to become an affiliated site for the Camping and Caravanning Club or the Caravan and Motorhome Club, but that the development would be limited to an amenity building, warden’s compound and a small shop.
The application adds: “However, the shop will be lightly stocked as visitors will be expected to use Easingwold for daily supplies.”
However, opponents of the scheme have claimed distances in the proposal appear to have been “taken as the crow flies”, and the distance to the Market Place, around which the four pubs, butchers, cafes and bakers are located, is in fact 2.5km from the proposed caravan park.
One objector wrote: “So, owing to the distance from the town centre the site is not within easy walking distance and therefore guests will probably use their cars or try catch a bus.”
The objector added: “What it refers to as being a vehicle-free bridle path is actually a half-mile unsurfaced muddy track used by tractors and cars. Not ideal for walkers or cyclists…
“Despite aspiring to achieve a five-star rating this will be a basic site on a 6.3 acres field in a countryside location adjacent to a large-scale pig fattening unit.
“With no provision of a bar, club house, games room or playground this will be a basic site having little to offer holiday-makers. The negative impact this development will have on the location along with the loss of agricultural land will not be outweighed by any economic gain generated.”
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