PLANS for a new housing estate have been condemned by neighbours and councillors who warn access onto the site will be “horrendous”.

Hambleton District Council's planning committee is set to approve the estate of 41 new houses at Aiskew, near Bedale, despite objections from local residents and the Parish council.

There’s also growing concern at the lack of overall assessment of whether the local infrastructure can cope with the number of new homes planned. The latest Taylor Wimpey scheme will be the fourth new housing estate in the parish of Aiskew and Leeming Bar in the past two years increasing the number of households by around 25 per cent from 962 to over 1,200.

Residents are particularly concerned about the road into the new site. The estate is on an area of land between the main Dales road, the A684, and the Wensleydale railway.

Initially it was supposed to be off the main road in a shared entrance with another new site being developed at the rear of The Nurseries, by Shephard Homes, but now it is off a cul de sac on an existing housing estate at Fox Covert Close.

Parish councillor Margaret Tiplady said: "It is a horrendous access, and the residents are very concerned. When that site was originally proposed the whole site belonged to a single developer, since then it has been split and the entrance road for this site is coming off an existing side road.

“It really is a quiet cul de sac, it was never intended to take a large amount of traffic. How they think it can be a main access to a housing site is beyond belief, it is narrow and people will not easily be able to negotiate it.

“We are also concerned that this is the latest housing development but there seems to be no overall look at the infrastructure for this area, the doctors surgery in Bedale is already overwhelmed."

Planning officer David Gibson says, in a report to the planning committee, which meets on Thursday, that the developers had a traffic assessment done which said the scheme would generate less than one vehicle movement every two minutes at peak periods and with no noticeable impact on the main junction.

He said: "In the absence of objection from the Highway Authority, this alternative is considered acceptable in highway terms. Residents on Fox Covert Close would experience more through traffic but that road is constructed to a standard capable of accommodating the traffic from 40 dwellings.”