Plans for 200 new homes in Harrogate confirm football pitches will be lost

Harrogate Borough Council granted outline permission for the scheme to go ahead in December 2021.

The plans from Homes England and Countryside Properties include the conversion of several former training centre buildings into 16 homes and building 184 new properties.

The former police site on Yew Tree Lane was used as a base to train more than 1,200 officers a year before it closed in 2011.

Homes England, which is the government’s housing agency, already had permission to build 161 homes on the site but wanted to increase this by 23 per cent to 200 homes by building on three football pitches and one cricket field.

To make up for the loss of sports facilities, it offered £595,000 towards Pannal Community Park on Leeds Road through a section 106 agreement that was backed by Sport England.

Homes England appointed Countryside Properties in a £63m contract to build the homes and a reserved matters application has now been submitted for the scheme.

This includes details such as landscaping, how the homes will look and the site layout.

Although there will no longer be football or cricket pitches there, the developer has included some open space at the south of the site for the public to use.

30 per cent of the homes will be affordable and they will be spread across the site.

The existing cast iron gates and stone gateposts located off the main driveway will be retained as an entrance feature to a new ‘village green’.

The main access will be created via a new priority junction off Yew Tree Lane.

This will also provide the starting point for a new cycle route that will run the development.

The developer delivered leaflets about the application to 363 residents and businesses in the area before submission.

A planning statement says: “Careful consideration has been given to the detailed design of the proposal to ensure that it creates a high quality and distinctive development that establishes a strong sense of place and provides an attractive and comfortable place to live.”