A GROUP of residents who have set up a protest group against plans to build about 500 new houses in Malton are to carry out their own traffic survey.

Members of the Malton Residents’ Group say the outline application will have a huge impact on the local area including its infrastructure and the affect on local air quality.

The plans, which have been submitted by the Fitzwilliam Malton Estate, propose to develop a 21-hectare site between Castle Howard Road and Middlecave Road, with the A64 forming the western boundary.

Provisionally named High Malton, the proposed development is described as a self-contained community of homes, shops and employment and will include a significant proportion of affordable homes interspersed with properties ranging from bungalows to larger family houses.

Ian Conlan, from the Malton Residents’ Group, said they were planing to carry out the traffic survey at two of the key junctions -Castle Howard Road/York Road/Yorkersgate/Horsemarket Road and Middlecave Road/Mount Pleasant.

"We are doing this because we would like to submit detailed and accurate figures on a variety of days, cold wet ones as well as warm dry ones, for the traffic in our area to Ryedale District Council and the planning committee so that they can make an informed decision about the application based on how much traffic we already have," he added.

"We also want to collect photographic evidence of the queuing that all Malton residents know about at key times of the day, such as the base of Middlecave Road coming from the school on the school run, and Yorkersgate in the evening rush hour."

Mr Conlan said they were also increasingly concerned about the potential health risks posed by the increase in traffic.

"More traffic is not just more units of pollution, but it starts to multiply beyond that: there is more congestion, and in congestion, each car emits far more air pollution than if it is flowing freely, whether moving slowly, queued, or stopped at the extra traffic lights proposed for Castle Howard Road, or at the roundabout on the edge of the development.

"Butcher Corner is an Air Quality Action Zone. Relying in projected reductions in car emissions is not an acceptable or sufficient strategy in the face of such disastrous increases in congestion and queuing. "

Mr Conlan said: "There remains questions about the visual impact on the area of outstanding natural beauty of five storey buildings and massive traffic impacts, still not addressed adequately, and not surprising given the enormous size of the proposed development as against the modest size of our town. Let us save our town. Save our countryside. Save our health. "

Tobias Burckhardt, surveyor for Fitzwilliam Malton Estate, said: “The local plan for Ryedale adopted by the district council calls for the building of 1500 homes in and around Malton in the next ten years. So developing the site is not a choice.

"There is a choice to build cheaply and unimaginatively or to support the Estate’s vision for High Malton and get an aspirational development which is about high quality construction, sustainability and good design.”

Mr Burckhardt added: "The objective for the future development of High Malton is to provide a sustainable new extension to the town where the need to travel is reduced through the close proximity of houses and jobs, and where the residential environment is not dominated by the car.

"As well as building around 500 homes we want to create employment and other opportunities for existing and new residents, whilst making sure that people’s residential amenity is unharmed."