CONTROVERSIAL plans to build 36 new homes in Gargrave and a 'screening opinion' application at Hellifield Flashes are included in a list of high profile planning applications to be dealt with before Craven District Council ceases to exist in six months time, heard councillors.

Craven District Council's planning manager Neville Watson said he wanted to see applications currently in the system including for Marton Road, Gargrave; Hellifield Flashes, and at Skipton Crematorium dealt with before the council was replaced by the new North Yorkshire Council on April 1, 2023.

Speaking at a meeting of the council's planning committee, he said:"I've identified a number of applications that I think are very important to be done by Craven District Council rather than being left after local government reorganisation in March. We are on target with those and will be dealing with them before the new authority (takes over)."

A planning application by RN Wooler for 36 homes, off Marton Road, Gargrave, including 11 affordable, was submitted to the council in January. In March, the highways agency recommended refusal, on the grounds that the current highway drain is 'running at capacity in times of rainfall and therefore cannot accommodate any additional flow from the proposed development'.

A petition by Gargrave Action Group was signed by more than 100 people and objections continue to be logged on the council's website, eight months after the application was validated. There are currently around 150 comments with objectors raising concerns including traffic on Marton Road, and the drainage system being already at capacity.

Mr Watson told the meeting that there were still some technicalities that needed to be solved before the application came before councillors, and that Woolers was working on it.

"The applicant is still considering matters with a view to resolving outstanding issues. It will be a while before it comes to committee," he said.

A request for an Environmental Impact Assessment Screening Opinion in relation to plans to create 99 lodges at the Hellifield flashes site off Kendal Road, in Hellifield, has gone back to the applicant for up to date information, said Mr Watson.

The outline application, by Ballan Ltd, submitted in 2020, seeks the development of up to 99 lodges, reception cabin with parking, and landscaping including ground modelling and water features, and is a resubmission of a previous application refused in March, 2019.

Mr Watson told councillors the applicant had been told insufficient evidence had been submitted for the council to decide and until that was received a decision on whether an environmental impact assessment was needed, or not, could not be made.