Forward Investments seeks outline consent for up to 150 homes off Thirkill Drive in Pannal, with 50% affordable. The council's target decision date is 25 November.
A plan for up to 150 homes on green belt fields at Pannal is now open on North Yorkshire Council’s planning register. Half of the homes would be affordable housing, under a draft legal agreement filed with the application.
The outline application, reference 26/04591/OUTMAJ, covers 7.93 hectares of land south of Smithy Close and west of Thirkill Drive and the A61. The site takes in three agricultural fields and the existing recreation ground, which holds two playing fields, a car park and a play area. It was submitted on 4 August and validated by the council on 26 August.
The applicant is Forward Investments LLP, through Skipton-based agent Addison Planning Consultants. Its planning statement describes the scheme as the third phase of building around the former Dunlopillo works, after the Thirkill Drive homes and Vida House care home, Bellway’s housing phase, and the commercial units built by Hornbeam Park Developments.
What the application proposes
Everything except the access is left for a later, detailed application. At this stage the developer is asking the council to accept the principle of:
- up to 150 homes, with the only fixed detail being the access from Thirkill Drive
- 50 per cent of the homes as affordable housing, written into the draft section 106 heads of terms
- about 3.7 hectares of green space, 46 per cent of the site
- keeping the 1.36-hectare recreation ground, which the statement says would be enhanced as a community park with an extended play area
- a contribution towards school places, with the amount left blank in the draft agreement for the council’s education department to set
The 50 per cent affordable offer is above the 40 per cent that local policy HS2 asks of greenfield sites. The developer ties the higher figure to the “Golden Rules” national policy applies to green belt release.
The developer’s case rests on the housing shortage
The planning statement leans heavily on the collapse in the former Harrogate district’s housing land supply, which we reported in August. Against a requirement of 5,492 homes over five years, including the required buffer, the latest monitoring identifies deliverable sites for 3,111. That is 2.2 years of supply against the five years national policy expects, a position the statement calls “a severe level of under supply”.
The statement also argues the fields meet the national definition of “grey belt”, lower-value green belt land where development is not automatically inappropriate. That is the developer’s own assessment, made in a green belt review it commissioned. The council has not yet published its view.
One complication is of the developer’s own making, in timing. The statement was drafted in July and argues its case under the National Planning Policy Framework as numbered then, including the “tilted balance” at paragraph 11(d). The government published a rewritten framework on 17 August, two weeks after the application went in, and the council will decide the application against national policy as it stands at decision time, not as it stood at submission.
What it means for you
The application is at the comment stage. Anyone can read the 43 documents and comment on the council’s planning register while it remains undecided. Two public comments had been filed by 15 September.
The register lists the council’s internal target date for a decision as 25 November 2026. A scheme of this size would normally go before the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Planning Committee rather than being decided by officers. The site sits in the Oatlands and Pannal division, represented by Cllr John Mann, and in Pannal and Burn Bridge parish. The case officer is Emma Walsh.
If outline permission is granted, the detailed design, layout and house types would all come back as a separate reserved matters application. For more on applications across the district, see our planning news hub.
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