After Harrogate Borough Council's 32-member district development committee voted in favour of a draft blueprint for housing development,

the Cabinet approved the draft planning strategy, which will form a major part of the District's Local Development Framework (LDF), setting out proposals for house building through to 2023.

 

This core strategy will now go for approval to a full council meeting on

4 July, before being sent to a Government inspector, who will decide next year whether to accept it as it is, to make amendments before acceptance, or to reject as unsound.  There will also be further public consultation in September.

 

Central Government has demanded that the council provides sufficient land to build 6000 homes throughout the district over the next fifteen years.  Sixty-two per cent (3,720) of those homes are planned for the Harrogate and Knaresborough urban area.  Whilst the core strategy does not name precise locations for these houses, it does identify two broad areas of growth in the urban area: west of Harrogate, and east of Knaresborough.

 

Cabinet Member for Planning and Transport, Councillor Don Mackenzie, said: "We have very difficult decisions to make over the next few weeks and months.  Most of us would prefer not to have to build 400 houses a year for the next fifteen years.  In the face of necessity, we are intent upon choosing the most suitable locations for growth, and ensuring that the infrastructure roads and other transport links, schools, doctors and dentists, retail outlets, post offices keeps pace with the growth."

 

The other areas around Harrogate and Knaresborough are considered unsuited to major expansion of housing, on account of various factors, including land use constraints (e.g. green belt), road capacity, transport links and the environment.

 

Councillor Mackenzie continued:  "It is unfortunate that Government demands will force us to identify in the LDF greenfield land for development.  We cannot rely on brownfield windfall sites which are, by their very nature, uncertain, although the more of those that we find early on in the 15-year plan, the further back we can push the date of having to use greenfield land".

 

The core strategy also recognises the need to provide affordable homes for local people and, on developments of two or more dwellings, will allow the council to negotiate for half of the total to be provided as affordable housing on-site.  Single dwelling developers will be required to make a financial contribution to secure an element of affordable housing off-site.  There will also be special arrangements to provide affordable housing on small rural sites.

 

Councillor. Don Mackenzie added: "Throughout the discussions on the core strategy, we have been mindful of the need to provide homes, which local people will be able to afford.  We know that the Harrogate district is one of the most expensive places in the country in which to buy a house. The council wishes to ensure that about 40 per cent of the new homes to be built here will be within the financial reach of local people looking for a home."  ENDS