Fresh plan for 138 new homes in Knaresborough submitted to North Yorkshire Council

The scheme will include 40 per cent affordable housing, a children’s play area and a pond.

The homes would be a mix of one to five-bedroom and 261 car parking spaces are proposed.

Landowner Geoffrey Holland has made two previous attempts to build houses on the agricultural land but they were both refused by Harrogate Borough Council.

In 2019, the council knocked back plans for 218 homes for reasons including a “poor quality” layout and the proposals not meeting the required affordable homes quota.

A smaller planning application for 170 dwellings was then refused by the council in 2021 and dismissed on appeal by a government planning inspector who said the homes would cause “significant harm” to the surrounding area.

The site is next to housing at Halfpenny Lane and close to the Hay-a-Park Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which includes three lakes formed from old gravel workings and is of national importance for wintering Goosander birds.

A transport assessment provided by the developer says there would be no “unacceptable impacts” on highway safety or the road network in Knaresborough arising from the development.

Haines Phillips Architects wrote in planning documents that the new plans address the previous reasons for refusal.

It said: “In summary the submission now presents a well-balanced, landscape dominated proposal where front gardens are generous, dwellings are no longer cramped, parking or garaging no longer remote or dominant, and casual surveillance and street activity visible in all locations.

“Thus this revised proposal addresses both the Inspectors concerns at Appeal and the subsequent comments of the planning officers throughout the recent preapplication dialogue.”

North Yorkshire Council will make a decision on the plans at a later date.