THE villagers of Sheriff Hutton are calling for answers after their hard work on a blueprint for the village's future was snubbed by district planning officials.

Councillor Allan Farnaby, district council leader and representative for Sheriff Hutton, told the council's planning and development services committee: "They feel very strongly that they have been let down".

The Village Design Statement is a Countryside Agency initiative which aims to give communities a say in how much development should be permitted in their area, where it should go, and how it should be designed.

Sheriff Hutton villagers worked with district councillors and officers for 14 months to produce their statement.

Three public meetings, one exhibition, a full consultation with residents, 24 special meetings and over 100 man-hours went into preparing the plan. Twenty-three revisions were then made and two complete re-writes carried out.

"We were given to understand that no further changes were needed to the plan," said Coun Farnaby.

He added that villagers now felt 'disheartened and disappointed' that there efforts were rejected.

Mike Moffoot, Ryedale's head of planning services, told the committee that he could still not recommend its acceptance by the council.

"Unfortunately, there has not been total agreement between the community and officers at various stages of preparation of the design statement," said Mr Moffoot. It had resulted in "an uncomfortable situation" and further meetings had been held as a result.

"The efforts and diligence of the parish council and the wider community is clearly evident and it is an unpleasant task for officers to have to dampen such enthusiasm to the extent that the community now feels somewhat hostile towards the planning department," said Mr Moffoot.

Mr Moffoot said the statement drifted from the design element. His report mentioned one section which dealt with the historical evolution of the village. Subject matter such as this is not appropriate for a design statement, Mr Moffoot claimed.

Following the meeting, Mr Moffoot said: "The statement is still too long and it contains certain aspects that are not appropriate for a village design statement."

When the statement did concentrate on planning, "the text and guidelines are excellent," he said.

Coun Elizabeth Shields warned that other villages would be 'put off' preparing their own design statement because of the Sheriff Hutton result.

Coun John Raper said: "It is pointless asking local people what they want and then ignoring them."

A move to have the plan adopted in its present form was lost but it was agreed that a working party should be set up of representatives of the Countryside Agency, RDC and Sheriff Hutton to find agreement on the design statement.