The beeping sound of lorries and diggers reversing fills the air. Mud covers the street. Planning application notices hang like baubles from lamp posts.

Welcome to Kingsley Road, a once quiet rural area on the edge of Harrogate that has become a permanent building site.

Some 600 homes are at various stages of construction in the nearby area. Work started years ago and shows no sign of ending.

On Tuesday, Harrogate Borough Council‘s planning committee is expected to approve a sixth development – Persimmon’s application for 162 homes in a field on Kingsley Drive. Some locals plan to demonstrate at the council offices in the hope of persuading the Conservative-controlled planning committee to reject the scheme.

Gary Tremble, pictured where more development is due to take place.

Gary Tremble, who lives on Kingsley Road, is at the forefront of local resistance. He is a member of Kingsley Ward Action Group, which was set up in 2019 because “we soon realised we needed to work together”.

By his own admission, Mr Tremble is a “pain in the arse campaigner” who bombards councillors of all political colours with emails complaining about uncovered lorries, the state of the roads, road safety and anything else that concerns people who live in the area. He says some Greens and Liberal Democrats “have been helpful” but the bulldozers keep coming. He says:

“There’s a lot of anger on this street and it will get worse if people keep ignoring us.

“I have to take time off otherwise I get angry all the time. But then you walk out the door and see another truck going past at 40mph.”

The proposed road closure leading to Bogs Lane

The homes are being built in a residential area off the already-congested Knaresborough Road. North Yorkshire County Council has now applied to block the through-route on to Bogs Lane, which some welcome on the grounds it will reduce local traffic. Others say it will just drive more vehicles on to Knaresborough Road.

All you can see in the Kingsley area is houses.

Mr Tremble says:

“The main issue is there is no infrastructure. You can’t build several hundred homes with no community centre, dentist or shop.”

He says if the Persimmon development is approved and more green land between Starbeck and Bilton is concreted over, many people will have had enough and look to move.

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Other local people feel equally strongly. Darren Long says:

“It literally feels like we’re given more bad news on a daily basis. It’s now seven years since construction started on the first Barratt’s development and it shows no signs of stopping. It’s so sad that this has been allowed to happen.

“We were so excited to move here in 2017. It’s miserable living here now. Living with the constant construction traffic, proposed road closures, one way systems and the horrific traffic.”

Peter Nolan, who has lived in the Kingsley area for 49 years, says Harrogate Borough Council “should be ashamed of the state they have let this once quiet area get into”. He adds:

“I’ve never ever in all my years had to queue half way along Kingsley Road in a morning but now I quite often spend 20 minutes trying to get out onto Knaresborough Road.”

Resident Dee Downton added:

“I am more concerned about the effect of the normal day-to-day basics that impact the everyday person getting to their destinations or commute to work, the impact on air quality because it’s just one constant traffic jam, the impact when ambulances can’t get through, the danger to pedestrians crossing because a gap in the traffic is seen and a vehicle acts quickly but fails to see someone crossing the road.”

Developers have targeted Kingsley because the land is allocated for development on the Harrogate district Local Plan 2014-35, which outlines where development can take place,

They say the schemes bring much-needed housing to Harrogate.

But those living in the area are less enthusiastic. Anonymous posters appeared on the street recently urging locals to legally double park on the pavement to prevent developers’ lorries from passing.

Mr Tremble says such anger is understandable because feelings are reaching “boiling point”.

Andrew Hart, a postmaster in nearby Starbeck, sympathises and says the action group is “doing their best to right a massive wrong”, adding:

“I am appalled with the never ending chaos created by the developments and road closures along Kingsley. The whole infrastructure was never designed for this number of houses.

“We have ended up with serious health and safety issues, lack of local resources and a gridlocked Knaresborough Road and Starbeck.”

Tuesday’s planning committee can be watched live on Harrogate Borough Council’s YouTube page here.

A councillor says more should be done to tackle construction vehicles that are making people’s lives a ‘misery’ in residential areas.

There has been an unprecedented levels of housebuilding in the Harrogate district in recent years, which has resulted in an increasing number of trucks, lorries and other construction traffic going to-and-from sites.

At a Harrogate Borough Council meeting last night, Conservative councillor for Old Bilton, Paul Haslam, queried what more the council could do to support residents dealing with disruption.

When a development receives planning permission, conditions are attached that stipulate how housebuilders will minimise the impact of issues such as noise and dust.

But Cllr Haslam said he and other councillors had received complaints from residents that the council’s planning enforcement team was not ensuring that conditions were being upheld.

Cllr Haslam said:

“I’m very concerned at the moment about some building work that’s going on in Harrogate, where it’s close to existing properties. [The housebuilders] have been given permission to build, not to make their lives a misery.

“How can we help officers enforce conditions to ensure that development is conducted in a safe and healthy way?”

He added:

“I have potential building on the edge of my area at the moment. The people who live next to it will have 10 years of disruption.”

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In response, Conservative councillor for Killinghall and Hampsthwaite, Michael Harrison, suggested council officers should meet with the directors of housing companies so they can better understand “how much work they need to do” to support people who live next to building sites.

Conservative councillor for the Washburn ward, Victoria Oldham asked Cllr Haslam if he thought HBC’s planning enforcement team was acting on complaints from residents “in a timeous manner”.

Cllr Haslam said he was concerned that enforcement officers “don’t have enough support”. He said:

“Quite clearly, guidelines are being flaunted by the developers. We need to make sure we are seen to protect our residents.”

Harrogate Borough Council has held onto almost £4 million of unspent money given to it from housing developers for social and community projects.

The Section 106 cash is agreed during planning talks to offset the impact of new housing and is intended to be used for improvements such as village hall refurbishments and new sports facilities.

More than £613,000 was spent on projects during 2020/21 – and the council has been praised by some communities.

But with around £3,730,000 unspent at the end of that period, there are concerns that many residents are not feeling the benefits at a time when the construction of hundreds of new homes is piling pressure on the need for community facilities.

Residents left with no community improvements

John Hansard, a member of Kingsley Ward Action Group, said the area faced the construction of around 700 new homes but residents have had “nothing at all” in terms of community improvements.

He said:

“Some of this money needs to come our way.

“Harrogate can’t cope with much more new housing and to think they want to build an extra 700 homes in our area is absolutely crazy.”

Tim Ellis, who also lives in the Kingsley ward, added: 

“There is no community hall, no church halls and not even a pub any more, therefore nowhere local groups can have meetings.

“With all the new housing destroying the last of the fields, and new houses having tiny gardens, we will need a public park.

“The triangle of meadow and trees to the east of Kingsley Farmhouse bordering Kingsley Road would be ideal… but greedy developers are threatening to put houses even on this.”

Most of the money spent by Harrogate Borough Council during 2020/21 was on the purchase of affordable housing.

Cllr Tim Myatt, cabinet member for planning at the council, described the funding as a tool to “support future communities across the Harrogate district” and said other projects included new play areas and open space.

He also said the authority helped North Yorkshire County Council secure around £1.2 million in the last year for improvements to roads, sustainable travel and schools.

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But when questioned by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the county council did not say how much unspent money it has held onto.

A county council spokesperson said Section 106 money has a “significant lifespan” and that the funds will be used for their intended purpose “at the appropriate time”.

Call for review of section 106 contributions

Harrogate Borough Council said it was “not unusual” for the authority to have large sums of unspent money and there were several reasons why this is the case.

It said the money is sometimes paid in instalments and cannot be spent until it has all been received. It also said parish councils often ask for the money to be saved up for larger projects.

Despite this, Cllr Pat Marsh, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat party, said the almost £4 million unspent by Harrogate Borough Council “does seem a lot” and has called for more regular reviews of how the money is spent.

The council also collects cash through Community Infrastructure Levy contributions, which are another type of charge on new housing.

These work on a pounds-per-square-metre basis and because of recent changes to Harrogate Borough Council’s charging schedules no contributions were collected during the last financial year.

It is now intended that a review will be carried out to develop a list of spending priorities and projects.

Cllr Myatt added: 

“Payment of CIL is due upon commencement of development, therefore there will be a time lag of up to two years before the first CIL contributions are received.

“In the future, the CIL will provide us with a pot of money so that we can work with local communities and partners to provide the right infrastructure in the right places to support development and the continued growth of the Harrogate district.”

A new 70-home housing development on Kingsley Farm in Harrogate will contribute to a growing “nightmare” scenario for traffic on nearby Knaresborough Road, says a local residents group.

Over 600 homes will eventually be built in the Kingsley ward of Harrogate.

John Hansard from the Kingsley Ward Action Group told the Stray Ferret that the scale of development has led to a “tipping point” for congestion, which he said is affecting quality of life for locals and commuters using the busy Knaresborough Road.

Clogged with traffic

Stonebridge Homes has already built 60 homes at Kingsley Farm on Kingsley Drive and the developer is now preparing for phase two of the scheme, which received outline planning permission in 2019.

Next Tuesday, Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee will consider a reserved matters application for the proposals which deal with appearance, layout and access.

The developer has reduced the number of homes from 90 to 70, which it says “is in the interests of good design”.

However, Mr Hansard told the Stray Ferret that traffic from the development will still impact on Kingsley Drive, Bogs Lane and Knaresborough Road, with the latter regularly clogged with traffic.

He said:

“At Kingsley Farm there are too many houses, too close together. The extra traffic means quality of life has decreased for residents. It’s becoming an absolute nightmare.”

Read more:

• One-way system in Kingsley will lead to ‘horrendous’ congestion

• Housing Investigation: 26,500 more cars on the district’s roads

In August 2020, the planning committee refused a different planning application for 149 homes in Kingsley, citing congestion as a reason for refusal.

Councillors said this was because the development would make already clogged roads in the area even worse.

‘Not severe’

The Stray Ferret asked Stonebridge Homes to comment but we did not receive a response at the time of publication.

In a transport assessment attached to the original planning application, transport consultants Sanderson concluded extra traffic generated through the homes would not be severe.

It said:

“The impact of the additional vehicle trips has been assessed at the key junctions on the local highway network and this has demonstrated that the effect of the generated traffic is not severe.”