COUNCILLORS who passed a plan for a 925-home estate on the condition that developers built an A-road junction nearby have spoken of their dismay after it emerged the scheme could be completed two years late.

Hambleton District Council leaders said they feared roads in the Thirsk area would suffer congestion if a revised proposal by Mulberry Homes - to allow it to develop of housing and commercial premises on the Sowerby Gateway site before providing the four-way A168 junction - was granted.

The developer, which has previously been forced to counter speculation over the financial viability of the scheme, submitted the plan as freelance builders working on the expansive development contacted The Northern Echo claiming they had not been paid.

Ahead of the estate being granted planning permission in 2011, the developer, 75 per cent of which is owned by Darlington and North Yorkshire housing association Broadacres, agreed to complete the junction by last September, six months after the first house on the estate was occupied.

The pledge calmed vociferous local opposition to the estate.

After it emerged the cost of building the junction had risen by more than £5m last year, Broadacres executives unsuccessfully approached the authority for a loan of £5m of public money for its private development arm Mulberry Homes, to help fund the junction.

A Mulberry Homes spokesman said it now needed to build 207 homes, a 90-bed sheltered accomodation centre, a 1,486sq m foodstore and nearly 7,000sq m of commercial buildings, or a combination of the developments, to make the junction financially viable.

It is believed the junction is unlikely to be completed before summer 2016.

The firm, which is expected to submit a planning application for permission to build more homes within weeks, dismissed claims its builders on the site were not being paid.

The spokesman said: "It is difficult to comment without knowing exactly who has made these allegations, but we can confirm that our principal contractor, Southdale, recently dismissed several sub-contractors due to non-performance."

The council's leader, Councillor Mark Robson, said the revised proposals represented an extraordinary amount of building before the junction was completed, but added North Yorkshire County Council would determine whether the road network could cope.

He said: "I am very disappointed that they haven't done it as per the planning conditions, but this is something Hambleton would not be able to enforce, even with court action.

"I am concerned that the roads will not be able to cope with the amount of traffic resulting from the amount of development proposed."