The leader of an influential health watchdog has accused NHS bosses of operating a postcode lottery, saying plans to build a mental health hospital in a town appeared to have been overtaken by a move to build another in a neighbouring district.

Councillor Jim Clark, chairman of North Yorkshire County Council’s scrutiny of health committee, said he had been infuriated to learn Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust was set to start building a 72-bed hospital in York when it already had plans in place for a new inpatient unit in Harrogate.

Councillor Clark said while there had been decades of under-investment in mental health across the county and York, Harrogate had suffered more than other areas.

The trust has stated demand for mental health services is three times higher in Harrogate district than the other areas it provides mental health services to in County Durham, Teesside, North East Yorkshire and York.

Plans by the trust for a mental health facility at Beckwith Head Road, west of Harrogate had looked set to go ahead after winning planners’ approval in August 2016.

The scheme featured 36 single en-suite bedrooms for patients, gardens and spaces for families to spend time with loved ones and a place of safety for vulnerable adults detained by the police.

At the time, Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Andrew Jones hailed the move for the £16m unit as “the biggest investment in mental health in our area ever”.

And Harrogate Borough Council’s leader, Councillor Richard Cooper, said: “There could be people that are currently being failed by the system and this will mean that we can give them the proper care that they deserve.”

It is understood contractors were working on improving road access to the site last year when the trust and NHS Harrogate and Rural District Clinical Commissioning Group (HaRD CCG) announced the scheme was being “paused”.

A month after planning permission had been given for the Harrogate site, the Care Quality Commission announced York’s mental health hospital, Bootham Park, would have to close as it was unsafe.

The trust announced its plans for a £19m 72-bed York unit on a site in Haxby Road, just two weeks before revealing it had put the Harrogate scheme on hold last July.

When the York hospital was given planning permission by City of York Council, Ruth Hill, the trust’s director of operations for York and Selby, said: “People across the Vale of York deserve to have access to the best possible mental health care and this includes having a state-of-the-art hospital.”

While the trust expects to complete building the York hospital next year, concerns over the future of the plans for Harrogate have been raised at two North Yorkshire County Council meetings in the last week.

Councillor Clark said: “Why, if you live in the Harrogate district, does your NHS spend a lot less money on mental health than in neighbouring authorities? It is not good enough in this day and age and we are now going to do something about it. It has gone on for too long.

“I was very angry to receive a communication from Tees Esk and Wear Valley to tell the people of York and Selby saying ‘Good news, we will start building your hospital in three months’. It is not good enough for the Harrogate scheme to be paused and I think there are answers to be given there.

“My concern is that they are not going to have two sites. They should only be proceeding with the York site when they need further beds.

“We bent over backwards to allow the Harrogate mental health hospital planning application to go through against our initial policies.”

Responding to Councillor Clark’s concerns, the trust made no comment about the distribution of NHS funds for mental health in the area or state if the decisions over the Harrogate and York projects were linked.

A trust spokeswoman said it wanted to reassure people that it was “considering everyone’s needs fully” in the development of mental health services for people across the Harrogate district.

She said the “pause” in the development of the Harrogate unit was to enable a review the options for both inpatient care and a better, more robust community based service.

She said: “We need to assess if a new hospital, on such a small scale, will best meet the needs of local people in Harrogate or whether improved community services will support a person’s recovery to mental health, and also determine the most clinically effective way to spend limited resource.

“Therefore we are engaging with local people to discuss the future of mental health services and to involve them in developing our vision for adult and older people’s mental health services.

“No decision has been made about the priorities for the future of mental health services – including inpatient services. We are working with HaRD CCG to engage with local people including service users, carers, staff and partner organisations through a series of public engagement events.”

The trust is consulting on plans to shape mental health services in Harrogate and will hold an event for the public to give their views on Tuesday, at the Old Swan Hotel, Harrogate, from 10am to 2pm.