A SCHEME to build 59 homes on a former garden nursery has been approved after developers were told to go back to the drawing board.

Hambleton District Council told Cecil M Yuill Ltd to "get their act together" in October after submitting an application featuring house designs councillors condemned as completely unacceptable in the Aiskew conservation area, near Bedale.

A meeting of the council’s planning committee this week heard the developer had changed the designs “to produce street scenes more in keeping with a village feel”, as well as increasing a public open space area.

The scheme, which will feature one, two, three and four-bedroom homes, will include some two-and-a-half storey high buildings, despite councillors previously condemning the designs at the former Cartman’s Nurseries site, off Bedale Road.

Cecil M Yuill said the taller buildings were a crucial aspect of the development, serving as “landmark buildings at key locations which add to the variety of the street scene”.

Members were told: “The amended scheme will deliver an attractive and sustainable development which will add to the built environment of Aiskew.”

Councillor Derek Adamson said it was particularly pleasing to see the development, which includes 30 per cent affordable housing, resulting in 18 affordable homes being located in a village environment.

He said: “Not everyone wants to live in a market town where most of the affordable houses are being built.”

Councillors said the estate, alongside another in Aiskew for 89 houses and another in nearby Leeming Bar for 82 homes, would prove attractive to workers on the Leeming Bar industrial estate and would boost the local economy by keeping their wages in the local area.

Cecil M Yuill will pay a contribution of £560,000 towards community projects as part of the planning approval, which will include £190,000 towards education, with £163,000 towards a footpath and cycle link in Bedale, £56,000 towards a new scout hut and £151,000 for public open spaces, sport and recreation.

The contribution equates to £9,512 per new dwelling. The three new estates will all have access off the main A684 road. A new £42m relief road is planned for Bedale which would take pressure off the new developments.