Letter to the Editor, 5 March 2022
(Explanatory text updated 5th December 2023)

In the letter below (published in the Yorkshire Post and Ryedale Gazette & Herald), I express my views about the impact of the current Ryedale Local Plan (adopted in September 2013) on housing provision in our small Ryedale villages. I highlight the threat of over-development of our so-called ‘Service Villages’ posed by the current Plan, which, if not revised, threatens to destroy the character of our larger villages and, simultaneously starve our smallest communities of the new life they need to both survive and thrive. There is much more to be said on this subject but the letter below is one place to start.

I am (sorry, was) the Elected Member for the Sinnington Ward of Ryedale District Council and a member of the Ryedale Local Plan Working Party. I tried my very best to bring about changes the Ryedale Plan to protect our larger villages from over-development (I stood up and spoke in defence of the people of Slingsby to the surprise of certain people) and I also hoped to enable a proportionate amount of new, small scale, housing in our small (other) villages. What a demeaning and patronising bloody title ‘other’ villages is! I advocated for a sensitive, fair and proportionate increase in the amount of new housing across all Ryedale villages in order to revitalise and protect our smallest rural communities. Occupancy Conditions must be scrapped. They are blocking much needed development and undermining the sustainability of our small communities.

The danger now (5 December 2023) is that some of the people charged with the task of creating a new Local Plan for North Yorkshire are the same individuals responsible for the biggest mistakes in the current Ryedale Plan which, we were told this evening, will remain in place for another five years. This spells disaster to the small village communities in Ryedale and will lead to dangerous air polllution in Malton and Norton as the market towns are allowed (under the existing plan) to expand. Ironically, reducing air pollution is a new North Yorkshire Council priority (Jump on the band wagon and smile like you mean it!). There is more to be said and people (serving councillors) to name.