Harrogate housing land supply drops from 6.71 years to 2.2

The former Harrogate district can now demonstrate only 2.2 years of housing land, against the five years national policy requires, and councillors will see what that means in practice on Tuesday morning.

North Yorkshire Council’s Strategic Planning Committee meets at 10am on 11 August at County Hall in Northallerton to decide an outline application for up to 210 homes on 13.17 hectares of arable land north-east of Harrogate Road, at the Wetherby edge of the district. Officers recommend that permission be granted, subject to conditions and a section 106 agreement.

The same site, the same number of homes and the same landowner were before a planning committee eight years ago, and the scheme was refused. The housing land supply figure is the main thing that has changed since.

Same site, 6.71 years then, 2.2 years now

The earlier scheme, HGT17/01897/OUTMAJ, went to Harrogate Borough Council’s planning committee three times in 2018. Members deferred it in April, were minded to refuse it in August over health, education and highway concerns, then in September were minded to grant it subject to a section 106 agreement. Before that agreement was signed, the applicant appealed against non-determination, and the council’s recommendation switched to refusal because it could by then demonstrate a five-year housing land supply.

The appeal was dismissed on 13 February 2020. The inspector cited harm to the character and appearance of the landscape, particularly the effect on two bridleways, and, in the officer report’s words, “the healthy housing land supply position of 6.71 years at that time was considered to attract significant weight”.

Officers are careful to say this is a fresh application to be considered on its own merits. But the report is explicit about what has shifted: “the Council is only able to demonstrate a 2.2-year housing land supply”, which engages paragraph 11(d) of the National Planning Policy Framework and the presumption in favour of sustainable development. Below five years, permission should be granted unless the adverse impacts would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, or unless a policy protecting an asset of particular importance gives a clear reason to refuse.

How the figure is built

The report sets out three numbers. Because the Harrogate District Local Plan 2014-2035 is now more than five years old, its housing requirement is out of date, so the annual figure comes from the government’s standard method: 1,046 homes a year. With the 5% buffer, the five-year requirement is 5,492 dwellings. Against that, using 2024/25 monitoring data, the council says there is a deliverable supply of 3,111 homes over five years.

Worth noting for anyone checking the maths: 3,111 homes measured against a 5,492-home five-year requirement works out at about 2.8 years, not 2.2. The report states the 2.2-year conclusion twice but does not show the step between the published figures and it, so the working is not in the public document.

Either way, the district is well short of five years, and that is what triggers the tilted balance.

What is proposed at Harrogate Road

The application is outline, with everything reserved except access from the A661. The land is arable, owned by the Stockeld Park Estate, and sits outside defined development limits, though it adjoins the built-up area of Wetherby. It went to Strategic Planning Committee rather than an area committee, officers say, “due to the sensitivity of the application and its location on the boundary with Leeds City Council”. A 325-home Bellway development on the Leeds side has recently been completed next to it.

If approved, 40% of the homes would be affordable, which the housing department puts at 84 of the 210. Education contributions sought total £2,068,880.10, including £159,516 towards special educational needs provision.

The objections are substantial. Yorkshire Water objects outright, saying the public sewer network serving Wetherby “does not have adequate capacity”, and raising flood risk, pollution and public health, while recommending conditions if permission is granted anyway. Wetherby Town Council objects and says the site is Green Belt; the officer report disagrees, stating that land south of the A661 is statutory Green Belt “but this does not extend to any part of the application site”. Residents’ objections cover traffic, school places and GP capacity, loss of best and most versatile agricultural land, and the precedent of building outside development limits.

Officers accept real harm. The report concedes the permanent loss of agricultural land and “moderate adverse landscape and visual effects”, but concludes those do not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits.

What it means for you

If you live in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon or the villages between, the 2.2-year figure is the practical thing to take from Tuesday. It applies across the whole former Harrogate district, not just to this site. While it stands, an application on a field outside a settlement’s development limits starts from a presumption in favour rather than a presumption against, and the local plan’s spatial strategy carries less weight than it did.

That has two consequences worth understanding. Objections that rely on a site being outside development limits, or contrary to the growth strategy in the local plan, are weaker arguments than they were in 2018. Objections grounded in specific, evidenced harm, on landscape, heritage, highway safety, drainage capacity or protected habitats, are the ones that still bite, because those are the harms weighed in the balance.

The figure is not permanent. It is measured against a monitoring period, and it will move as permissions are granted and homes are built out. The emerging North Yorkshire Local Plan, which will eventually replace the Harrogate District Local Plan across the county, is at too early a stage to carry weight, so the report gives it none.

Tuesday’s meeting is a public one at County Hall, Northallerton, and the agenda and officer report are published in full, including an officer update issued on 6 August.

For what else is in the pipeline across the district, see our Harrogate planning news. For what new supply is doing to values, see Harrogate house prices.