SKIPTON town councillors have expressed their disappointment over the sale of land in the town to a private housebuilder.

Craven members of North Yorkshire Council have already expressed their frustration over the sale of land off Airedale Avenue by the authority to Skipton Properties.

At September's area meeting of North Yorkshire Council, several members said they had been unaware of the sale until they had read about it in the Craven Herald.

Now, members of the town council have also expressed concerns, criticising the higher authority, which replaced Craven District Council last year, and added it was a missed opportunity to provide more social housing.

North Yorkshire Council has responded that it was transparent whenever it could be but that the sale was a commercial deal and was treated accordingly.

At the recent full meeting of Skipton Town Council, Cllr David Noland, who represents Skipton North on North Yorkshire Council, said the sale of the land was the most pressing issue he was dealing with.

"The councillors had no idea it was going on; if we had kept it in our own ship of North Yorkshire Council, we could have made sure it was all social housing, or a mix of social housing; affordable housing is not affordable to people round here, the average semi-detached goes for £270,000 I think, which is hardly affordable," he said.

"We could have made that a good site that people want, but now there will be a lot of market homes on it, so we are all very disappointed with it. Its amazing that none of the councillors in this area knew that it was going ahead. It is a missed opportunity."

He added there was also the neighbouring site which was also allocated for housing that was yet to come forward and there was also the question where was all the traffic going to go, bearing in mind how  busy Shortbank Road is now. 

Cllr Brian McDaid said it was ridiculous that none of the North Yorkshire councillors knew about it and asked if anyone had asked why it had happened.

Cllr Noland replied that it 'had been done' so there was 'not much' that could be done now.

Cllr Peter Madeley added he had read with 'sadness' about the sale in the Herald.

"We need to know how this has happened, it is up to councillors to speak to the executive to make sure it doesn't happen again; its just not good enough," he said. 

North Yorkshire Council’s corporate director of resources, Gary Fielding, said: “We are transparent wherever we can be in our operations, however commercial deals have to be handled with a competitive process to ensure that we provide the best value for taxpayers.

“The disposal of land off Airedale Avenue in Skipton has been ongoing since 2022. When the former Craven District Council agreed to sell, there was an open market tender exercise but members deferred the decision until after the creation of North Yorkshire Council on April 1, 2023.”

Skipton Properties has applied to build 53 new homes on the site, 30 per cent of which will be affordable.