RESIDENTS who fought against a petrol station being built on the outskirts of Skipton say they feel let down by North Yorkshire Council due to its “half-hearted” defence at a planning appeal hearing.

When plans for the 'roadside services facility' off Gargrave Road on the A65/A59 roundabout were first refused in October 2022, councillors gave four reasons including harm to the character and appearance of the area, highways safety, damage to biodiversity and its impact on shops in the town centre.

The developer Brookfield Property Holdings Ltd appealed the refusal but at an appeal hearing last month, the council decided to only defend the first reason that councillors gave — that the facility would would harm the character and appearance of the area, which includes its designation as a ‘local green space’.

A government planning inspector ultimately sided with the developer and overturned the original refusal, which means the petrol station can now be built.

Karen Darvell, chair of Stirton with Thorlby Parish Council, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that residents are unhappy with the council’s approach to the appeal.

Ms Darvell said: “Those residents who saw this application for what it is – a cynical breach of trust on the part of the council which so readily gave up a supposedly protected Local Green Space in the Local Plan – are extremely disappointed at this outcome. We have been badly let down once again by the local authority. From highways to the planning department’s initial report and defence of the appeal, the submissions made by the local authority were half hearted and simply inadequate.

“One positive was the robust responses of some former and current councillors who are prepared to be heard and to faithfully represent residents’ views. Thank you to those councillors.

“This is not the end of the matter regarding the local authority’s handling of planning matters, there will be further representations made to the local authority and to other organisations too.”

Green Party councillor Andy Brown, who sat on Craven’s planning committee when the plans were refused last year, was critical of planning inspector Helen Hockenhull’s decision to overturn the refusal. Cllr Brown said:“I am shocked that any inspector would so lightly put aside a clear policy to designate an area of land as a green space. This designation was made after extensive consultation that took years. The last thing Skipton needs is a large out of town shop with a petrol station attached.

“We need people drawn into our town centre to keep it vibrant and we need our green space protecting. The building of an extra mini roundabout near a major junction may suit the business plan of the developer but it will be a serious inconvenience for anyone dropping off or picking up young people from the local schools and the College. The inspectorate has let the community down.”

North Yorkshire Council’s assistant director for planning Trevor Watson, said: “We will always defend planning decisions taken by the council as robustly as possible, as far as it is appropriate to do so taking all relevant matters into consideration.

“In this particular case, having carefully considered our ability to defend three of the reasons of refusal we felt that we didn’t have the development plan policy backing to successfully defend the decision and as a consequence concentrated our defence on only one of the reasons for refusal. This was considered to be in the best financial interests of the council”.