PLANNING is an increasingly controversial issue; nearly every week I learn of a large, new application with questionable merits.

The problem is that national planning guidelines make it almost impossible to block development in areas such as Ryedale, which cannot demonstrate a five-year supply of housing land. This leaves us vulnerable to speculative developers. We have planning by appeal and a two-tier system in which small local builders feel the full weight of planning rules, yet large developers with money and expertise out-gun the local planners.

Just before Christmas, the result of the Gladman planning inquiry was announced. Despite the town council and Ryedale District Council voting overwhelmingly against the development, it was allowed on appeal. Pertinent objections on the grounds of scale, traffic impact and loss of farming land were brushed aside by Gladman’s lawyers, who demanded that the inspector presume in favour of approval because Ryedale only had a 3.7-year housing supply.

Also consider the recent planning application for more than 60 homes on the former ATS site in Norton. While in theory a prime development location on a brownfield site, the application submitted resembled a city centre tower block in total contrast with the neighbouring shops in Commercial Street.

Despite being on a floodplain and in an area with potentially significant Roman remains, nothing was enough to prevent the application from being approved at the last planning committee meeting. Although many councillors disliked the proposal, they felt powerless to deny permission in view of the lack of a five-years’ housing supply. What is also worrying is the careless handling of the planning process, including the alleged misplacing of planning certificates and lack of consultation with the community.

Given the close connection with a district and county councillor, Councillor Lindsay Burr, the standard of openness and probity needed to be particularly high. I was deeply disturbed when Councillor Elizabeth Shields, a close friend of Coun Burr, addressed the planning committee in favour of the plan. This was at best unwise and gives the public little reason to have faith in the planning system.

Ironically, Gladman, which trampled over local objections in Kirkbymoorside, is about to submit an application for about 100 homes next to Coun Burr’s house in Langton Road, Norton. I wonder if she and Coun Shields will press the need for new housing in this case? Like the two applications discussed above, this one would be of a scale that is wrong for the area. I will fight hard against any similar development in Norton – even in the face of a biased planning system.

Unless we provide enough land in suitable locations, the five-year problem won’t go away and floodgates will remain open and landowners continue the scrabble to secure planning permission. Sadly, the council spent a decade investing more than a million in producing a local plan (still not complete), yet this now appears worthless. What price localism now?