Residents have raised concerns that building a new housing estate over a paddock used by alpacas to graze will exacerbate traffic congestion on an A-road across a historic market town.
Numerous objections have been lodged to Hallam Land Management’s application to build up to 30 homes on a greenfield site off Station Road, Thirsk, despite the 4.1-hectare site having been allocated for up to 110 homes in Hambleton’s recently adopted Local Plan.
Documents submitted by the developer underline that the site “has been assessed as suitable for residential development” and that entry to the estate would be by a T-junction onto Station Road, which had been “demonstrated as the most suitable and safe access point”.
The proposal states the estate would comprise 30 per cent affordable housing on site, subject to viability.
The papers add as the proposals would result in a net 41 per cent loss of habitats, a range of mitigation and compensation measures to reduce the impacts on breeding birds, bats and hedgehogs, are proposed as well as buying off-site habitat units.
“Station Road is already a bottleneck, particularly at the end by Tesco and Lidl with heavy traffic trying to get into Thirsk.”
North Yorkshire Council’s highways officers have yet to comment on the plans.
Thirsk Town Council has recommended the proposal be approved, while highlighting concerns over car parking provision and “the high density of housing” proposed, calling for fewer houses at the estate’s entrance.
However, residents have responded with dismay to the proposals, saying their existing views of “grazing alpacas and tranquil beauty in an undulating site enclosed with trees and hedges” deserves to be left alone.
One objector wrote: “How can it be a possible to turn such a beautiful piece of undulating land into bricks and cement?”
Residents have also questioned whether the town’s infrastructure and services would be able to cope with the additional pressures the estate would bring.
Likening Station Road to “a race track” one resident said the town was “congested every working day of the week and sometimes on a weekend”.
Another objector wrote: “The roads in Thirsk are already inadequate to cope with the amount of new builds. This can be seen by their current condition which is nothing short of appalling.
“This is a 40mph section of road and it is unthinkable to put another major junction onto Station Road without some serious investment into the overall road network in and around Thirsk. Any additional accesses onto Station road would be highway safety concern for both cars, cyclists and pedestrians.”
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