AT the planning meeting for the North Northallerton Development Area, all the Hambleton District Councillors thought that the planning application was the best thing they had ever seen and none of them or the planning officers could think of any reason why the application should be refused (D&S Times, Nov 13).

It would, among many other things, apparently, improve the traffic situation in Northallerton and Brompton.

I think, perhaps for political reasons, they decided to turn a blind eye while making their decision.

For example, a simple problem is that 9.5 hectares of the site are beyond Hambleton District Council’s adopted development limits.

A harder problem is that the link road that provides the traffic mitigation and temporary improvement to the traffic situation in Northallerton took several proposed routes before a solution was found that provided enough mitigation. But then the developers, of their own volition, decided to go with a different route, presumably so that they could get the very generous £6m grant before it expired.

No one has suggested that the new route should have been modelled to see if it would provide sufficient traffic mitigation for the development, or to see if it would provide enough mitigation for further development at sites known as NM5C (to the east of the A684 Northallerton to Brompton road) or NM5E (to the west of the A167 Northallerton to Darlington road), should they proceed in the future.

Traffic might also cause problems for the Hambleton council-owned development, called the Central Northallerton Masterplan, which is due sometime in the near future. Presumably officers will sit on their hands until that one is approved, too.

Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the North Northallerton developers’ opening offer with respect to affordable housing is that it will only account for 13 to 15 per cent of the development.

There are also going to be pages of reserved matters that should have been resolved earlier.

Everyone involved at Hambleton District Council and partners North Yorkshire County Council will be patting themselves on the back.

In my opinion, they have made their bed, now let them lie in it.

Alan McKee, Brompton