RE the Folkton poultry factory proposal. This would have housed 16,000 hens but was (thankfully) rejected by the planning committee.
That the committee was divided and found the decisions "difficult" makes one ask exactly where members' duties and responsibilities lie? They appear not to be either in the best interests of the appearance of Scarborough and its surrounds or in the o
pinions of the village residents who were 100 per cent in opposition.
As an interested 20-year ex-resident of the village I attended the meeting, along with many villagers, and we were impressed with the strong points made by Cllr Allanson in demolishing the need for the unit in this place. Despite that five voted for it, when their own Scarborough Borough Local Policy Plan of 1999 most clearly sets out the very reasons why such an intrusion should never take place in green land between Conservation Area villages.
Do the supporters wish the countryside around our town to be filled with yet more unsightly aircraft hangar-sized boxes? The southern A64 approach to Scarborough must count among one of the most ugly landscapes for miles with a waste-tip mountain and "carbuncles" of featureless buildings in the industrial estate alongside the main arterial route.
Nearer town the eye is assaulted with the ugly sprawl of large retail warehouses. A welcoming sight indeed for visiting holiday traffic to the "Jewel of the Yorkshire Coast"!
I read of the intention to build thousands of new houses in the Deepdale and Cayton areas. Goodbye countryside, goodbye greenery. Fill it all up. Generate more council tax income and to blazes with protection of the countryside.
Just where are we going? Change is inevitable, but ideally should be controlled for the betterment of all who live here. And, please, do not come up with the old chestnut that "it will be good for jobs". In the Folkton case there wouldn't have been any.
Derek Pitman,
Dovecot Close
Gristhorpe, Filey
