Ryedale town in homes cash hope (From Gazette & Herald)

Ryedale town in homes cash hope

A NORTH Yorkshire market town could benefit from almost £500,000 worth of improvements to its flood defences, local school, open play areas and roads if council planners give the green light to a massive new housing development.

Redrow Homes has applied for planning permission to build 218 homes on a 5.6 hectare triangular area of agricultural land between Scarborough Road and Norton Grove Industrial Estate on the north-east side of Norton. The developers originally submitted plans for 204 homes.

Redrow Homes will offer the sum of £150,000 to pay for a pumping station at Prior Pot Beck to provide a permanent solution to the problem of floodwater backing up the beck from the River Derwent.

The developer has also agreed to pay £100,000 towards highway improvements for the town in terms of additional facilities for cyclists, pedestrians and businesses. Capacity could be increased at Norton County Primary School with a contribution from Redrow Homes of £150,000 towards a new classroom and a cloakroom, so youngsters who came to live at the new development could be accommodated.

The proposed housing plans leave two open spaces, which the developer is not proposing to equip with play equipment for local children. It has offered £90,000 to improve or provide new play facilities elsewhere in the town. District council cultural services department has suggested that suitable projects could be improvements to Norton skateboard park, a youth shelter in Norton and Malton, and improvements to the under-fives play area at St George's Playing Field and a new multi-use play area at the site.

Of the 218 homes that are planned, almost half will be designated affordable housing. There will be 98 properties - one- and two-bedroom flats, two- and three-bedroom houses, and bungalows - available for either rent or discounted sale. Peter Mudge, Malton and Norton town centre manager, said: "I think that the increase in footfall in the town will certainly be beneficial from the business community side of things. What we don't want is businesses that come in, take, and not give. !t seems this proposal is giving a lot back to Norton.

"It seems like a good deal."

The application will be considered by Ryedale District Council planning committee on Tuesday.

Updated: 12:00 Friday, May 28, 2004