NORTH Yorkshire villagers have learnt details of a fourth proposed housing development in their community within four months.

A public exhibition was held last week detailing plans by Duchy Homes to build properties west of Rudby Bank, in Hutton Rudby.

The proposed development is described in Duchy Homes’ literature as a “small scale, low density, sensitively designed residential development of two, three, four and five bedroom bungalows and community open space”.

On Tuesday, July 12, residents received leaflets informing them of an exhibition due to take place at the village hall on Thursday, July 14 and turned out to the public consultation in significant numbers.

Allan Mortimer, from the village, said: “A lot of people turned up on Thursday.

“People are well-informed now and know how to ask difficult questions, so they did.”

It is one of two new housing plans likely to be submitted with Hambleton District Council for planning permission over the next few months.

This week a pre-application consultation is taking place with the council to develop what could be 24 homes off Garbutts Lane. The proposed site is on land earmarked as suitable for housing.

In recent months Hutton Rudby, near Stokesley, has attracted the attention of a range of developers, prompting the community to get involved with creating its own Neighbourhood Plan, to highlight what they view as appropriate development sites.

In May, residents living on Hundale Road in Hutton Rudby received repeated requests from Gladman Developments to bulldoze their homes to make way for an access road to a housing estate they wished to build.

The previous month, hundreds of residents turned out to a public debate organised by Hutton Rudby’s parish council on plans to develop 56 homes on farmland off Belbrough Lane.

Residents feared the development could increase the size of the village by up to 12 per cent and an action group, Save Hutton Rudby was set up. The plans have now been withdrawn, but at the meeting residents learned eight sites around the village had been put forward by various developers for housing.