RESIDENTS of a North Yorkshire market town are drawing up their own Neighbourhood Plan in a bid to have more control over who builds what and where in their community.

Over the last couple of years, Stokesley has been the focus of a number of planning applications for housing developments by large development companies and the location of an unsuccessful bid to create a supermarket on the edge of town.

Now the residents have decided to create their own Neighbourhood Plan in a bid to have more control over the type of development that takes place in the town in the future.

Neighbourhood Plans are designed to describe communities’ views on what sort of future development they want to take place and can encompass as broad or narrow a remit as residents specify; focusing on housing, retail, transport, leisure, business or all development.

Once formally adopted by the parish council, all future planning applications have to be evaluated against it.

Stuart Brennan recently led a campaign with the Save Our Stokesley group to oppose plans for a supermarket on the edge of the town, which residents feared would cause irreparable harm to the town’s High Street of largely independent shops.

He said they will decide on the scope of the neighbourhood plan based on the feedback they receive from the community, but the purpose of the plan was not a blanket ban on any future development.

The plans still have to meet the needs of the wider area - including young people and families - and take into account Hambleton District Council’s assessment of housing and other development needs in the area.

He said: “It’s alright saying, ‘we don’t want a supermarket’ or ‘we don’t want a housing estate’. This is an opportunity to say what we do want. Part of the process will be consulting with the schools and surgeries and finding out what their position is and what capacity they have.

“You have to say some development is inevitable. Just saying “we don’t want anything” isn’t a tenable position.”

A meeting is due to take place at St Peter and St Paul Parish Church in Stokesley on Thursday (January 29) at 7pm, for anyone interested in joining the steering group who will oversee the creation of the Neighbourhood Plan, or who wants to learn more about the plan.

It will be attended by specialist consultants who have experience in creating Neighbourhood Plans for market towns.

Mr Brennan said: “It’s going to be a couple of years’ work in creating it. So we need people with the time and energy to devote to this.”