ANGRY villagers have bombarded planners with questions about proposals for a 2,700-home new settlement west of York.

Hundreds of residents from villages including Green Hammerton, Kirk Hammerton, Whixley and Flaxby attended a consultation exhibition held at Green Hammerton village hall yesterday about Harrogate’s draft Local Plan, which includes the ‘Great Hammerton’ development.

They quizzed planning officials about why they prefer the Hammertons area for the new settlement, rather than an alternative site further west at Flaxby.

Susan Goss-Clements and Joanne Lightowler told official Rachel Hutton they believed Flaxby was a far better site, with a roundabout onto the A59 already built and without the loss of farmland which would happen at Great Hammerton.

They also claimed trains on the Harrogate-York line were already packed in the rush hours and it was a two-mile walk to the existing nearest station.

The officer said there was a ‘fine balance’ between the two sites, but Great Hammerton had better public transport facilities, with two railway stations already in existence.

She said the council was ‘sympathetic to the inpact’ of the scheme and was listening to residents’ views.

Resident Sean Harland emerged from the exhibition unconvinced. “They are a lot of idiots,” he said, adding he was not a ‘NIMBY,’ and had no objection to 150 extra homes and thought Flaxby was a better site for the settlement.

But Flaxby resident Howard White argued the opposite, claiming the existing roundabout on the A59 could not cope with extra traffic from the settlement.