Residents of two rural parishes that have seen no new housing built for about three decades, making it impossible for young people to remain in the area, have spoken of their dismay as soaring building costs have put their long-held ambition to breathe new life into the community on hold.
Speaking after Hambleton District Council’s cabinet approved the Ingleby Arncliffe Neighbourhood Plan, parish council chairman Councillor Clive Walley said “frustration is somewhat of an understatement” for villagers who had spent up to 12 years working to get the plan adopted only to find the developer aiming to create 18 homes for locals could no longer afford to build them.
While the school serving Ingleby Arncliffe and Ingleby Cross closed in 2017, residents of the villages between Northallerton and Stokesley remain determined to attract young families to the area and that the former school site be repurposed for homes for the young and the elderly.
The cabinet’s move will shortly bring the plan for which contains a series of policies that will be used when determining planning applications, into full legal force.
The decision follows 145 of the 154 villagers voting to adopt the Neighbourhood Plan in a referendum last month, making the community one of the first in the area to enshrine its blueprint for future development, made under decision-making powers in the Localism Act, in planning policy.
Hours after the decision, a meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive was told concerns that rapidly rising rural house prices were preventing residents from remaining in some villages, which could impact on the availability of workers for the hospitality and care sectors left struggling due to Brexit and Covid.
The meeting was told Richmondshire had seen house prices increase by 21.4 per cent over the last year.
Coun Walley said the 40 per cent year on year increase in building material costs had seen developer Beyond Housing apply for additional funding from Homes England and Hambleton District Council to build the much-needed homes.
He said: “At the moment we are waiting for a response from those parties and the housing development is on hold.
“There’s nothing anyone can do. Nobody has a magic wand. It’s a case of wait and see if Homes England and or Hambleton District Council come up with additional funding.”
Coun Walley emphasised that getting the Neighbourhood Plan adopted had been a huge and complicated task for the villagers, which made the latest delay particularly hard to take for some residents.
He said: “Frustrating is probably an understatement. Some people in this parish have been working on this 11 or 12 years. To say the least they were really elated when the Neighbourhood Plan went through.
“Setting that aside the parish council and the community are now in a much stronger position to go through the regime adopted by the plan when planning applications come along, particularly speculative developments.”
Hambleton council said it would submit a claim for £20,000 of funding from central government to cover the costs for the Neighbourhood Plan process.
A spokesperson for Beyond Housing said, “Despite supply chain delays and labour shortages causing setbacks to the housing and construction sectors nationally, we remain committed to delivering the new homes in Ingleby Arncliffe which will provide much-needed new, affordable homes for local people.
“We are working closely with our partners to address these issues so that the scheme can be delivered as planned.”
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