CAMPAIGNERS against proposals for a major new settlement west of York have welcomed news that a planning application for a rival site will shortly be submitted.

The Keep Green Hammerton Green action group said the plans by Flaxby Park Ltd for 2,750 homes on a disused golf course at Flaxby would reinforce their message that it was a much better site for such a settlement than land near Green Hammerton and Kirk Hammerton.

Planning officers at Harrogate Borough Council said earlier this year their preferred location in the authority’s Local Plan for a new settlement to meet the district’s housing needs was Hammerton, rather than Flaxby.

The Hammerton campaigners say they expect a report on a public consultation exercise to be published this week, when it should emerge whether planning officials have heeded their demands for Flaxby to become their preferred location.

Spokesman Chris Chilton said they had put forward strong arguments why it made ‘absolute sense’ to choose Flaxby, with access already on to the A59 and disused golf course land, was preferable to the agricultural land at Hammerton.

A senior councillor has said it would consider the planning application on its merits “with appropriate weight being afforded to the emerging Local Plan.”