Selby villagers in plea for science park probe

Residents of Burn, near Selby, claimed their village was being "sacrificed in the national interest", while officials at Burn Gliding Club said it would "kill them off."

Thousands of jobs would be created by the massive development on Burn airfield, and Selby district councillors have already given it their full backing.

But parish council chairman Gordon Holmes said today that villagers would be calling for a public inquiry if the Burn bid was successful.

He said: "We are a small, friendly community and if this happens, Burn will never be the same again.

"It will change the village completely. The gliding club will be killed off and farmers will lose their livelihoods.

"We're very concerned about radiation levels that would be produced and we will call a special village meeting as soon as we have more information."

The proposal to base the world's largest neutron scattering facility in Burn was kept secret until last Tuesday.

Mr Holmes said: "It came totally out of the blue, and the complete lack of information is very worrying."

Gliding Club chairman Bill Thorpe said today the science park would be a "total disaster".

He said: "It would kill us off at a time when air space for private flying is under great pressure.

"We have been at Burn for 20 years and our members' ages range from 14 to 84. We provide a lot of pleasure for a lot of people, but we are seen as small beer."

The Burn bid has been launched by regional development agency Yorkshire Forward, along with the White Rose Consortium, made up of the universities of York, Leeds and Sheffield.

It will be a major centre for the study of physics, chemistry, biology, materials and earth and engineering sciences, and is expected to attract 5,000 visiting scientists from all over the world each year.

Selby will be competing against four other bids for the park - one in Oxford, one in Scandinavia and two in Germany.

Updated: 15:03 Tuesday, May 21, 2002