Bid to close car park on building site in Pickering (From Gazette & Herald)

Bid to close car park on building site in Pickering

11:42am Wednesday 24th October 2012 in News

AN enforcement notice is to be issued by Ryedale District Council to stop an empty building site in Pickering being used as a car park.

The former coal depot site in Southgate is destined to be for a new supermarket after an appeal to a government planning inspector who overturned the council’s orginal refusal for a store.

The site, just off the A170, then became the subject of further controversy with objections from North Yorkshire County Council which wanted to use the area to re-align the junction with Vivis Lane.

It threatened to impose a compulsory purchase order but backed off because of the cost of doing so.

Now the site has been vacant for some time and in August was turned into a car park – despite objections from Pickering Town Council and other parties.

A report from planning officials to Ryedale District Council’s Planning Committee, which met last week, said a parliamentary act allows the temporary use of such land for up to 28 days in any calendar year.

But the developers indicated they wished to use the land for up to 18 months and submitted an application to do so.

This brought objections, not only from the town council, but also the county council’s highways department and the Environment Agency, as well as 11 other letters objecting to the plan.

Officials at the district council then used their delegated powers to refuse permission because of problems associated with traffic at the junction near the car park and the risk of polluted water discharge from the car park into Pickering Beck – but vehicles have still been using it.

At last week’s planning meeting committee members agreed that an enforcement notice to stop the land being used as a car park should be issued.

They also called for urgent action from the Environment Agency to ensure that the beck was protected from any potential pollution.