A ONE million square foot warehouse at Scotch Corner will cause substantial harm and industrialise the countryside, it was last night claimed as fear over the development grows.

Councils in the area are calling for a public consultation and exhibition to give people a chance to have their say after developers approached planners for opinions on whether environmental and traffic studies should be carried out for the massive scheme.

The development could end up being built near the Scotch Corner Designer Village, which is currently under construction, on the site near the A1(M) and main A66 trans-Pennine route.

Darlington and Stockton Times: How the Scotch Corner scheme could look How the Scotch Corner scheme could look

Locally, it is thought Amazon are behind the distribution centre development but the company has not responded to the D&S Times' requests for comment.

Middleton Tyas parish council said in a statement to Richmondshire District Council planners such a big development will cause substantial harm to the environment, people and surrounding area.

They said: “There are concerns development of this industrial nature not only causes significant harm to the area but will set an undesirable precedent for future development.

"There will be a large increase in traffic due to the already approved designer outlet shopping centre, as well as the garden centre and tourism boosts in the area.

"This scale of development will also bring HGVs using the A1068 daily. A detailed traffic assessment should consider the cumulative affects of all the current and future planning applications, as well as the A66 and A1 upgrades.

"Given the increase of HGV’s consideration should be given to more suitable sites where there are facilities for HGVs and drivers, such as Leeming Bar.

“A public consultation or exhibition should be considered due to the large number of people a development like this would affect.”

Moulton Parish Meeting said it would be a loss of 60 acres of productive agricultural land as they raised fears.

They said: “Although an end user has not been identified, a large storage and distribution building of this size fits the template adopted by such companies as Amazon.

"It is therefore reasonable to believe 24 hour working would be the norm, with attendant external flood lighting.

"This would only serve to accentuate the development’s inappropriate scale and location, effectively industrialising the countryside.”

Richmond Civic Society added: “The implications for traffic flow are large and need to be analysed extremely carefully as this would be the third major development on the site since the A1 junction was re-designed and the consequences of the other two developments on traffic flow have not yet been seen.

"The building is extremely large in footprint and height and will be visible from many distant viewpoints.”

Scotch Corner Developers could not be contacted to comment.