OVER 370 homes will be built on green fields outside of Yarm - just months after Stockton Borough Council approved plans for 350 homes on a nearby site.

Councillors on the planning committee were today (Tuesday, June 4) divided over whether to approve the homes, on land off Green Lane, but commitee chair Bob Gibson had the casting vote in favour of the development.

New housing has become a controversial issue in Yarm and Eaglescliffe in the last year, with over 800 homes approved at Allens West in Eaglescliffe and 350 allowed on farmland at Morley Carr Farm, on the west side of Yarm.

The Green Lane development will sit just across the road from the Morley Carr homes.

More than 20 objectors spoke at the packed planning meeting in Stockton today (Tuesday, June 4) with their main concerns being traffic congestion in Yarm, loss of rural land and natural habitat, and encroachment on to the dividing land between the village of Kirklevington and Yarm.

A previous application to build 735 homes on the site, and on the adjacent Yarm School playing fields was rejected because it was on greenfield land.

This time the land is next to the playing fields but the application had nothing to do with the school.

Chris Harrison, director of Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners, which is representing the landowners, outlined the benefits including a donation of £500,000 to Conyers School for improved sports faciities, economic benefits including 65 new full time and equivalent jobs, and the increased council tax revenue from the new homes. Developers have also promised 20 per cent of the stock is affordable homes.

But objectors said they feared the town's infrastructure, including transport, health, and schools, could not cope with the extra homes planned for both Yarm and Eaglescliffe.

Councillor Marjorie Simpson, of Yarm Town Council, said Thornaby, the A19 and Ingleby Barwick would all be affected by the extra traffic and that air pollution in Yarm was already worse than any of the borough's industrial sites.

Kirklevington historian Rose Butler said the homes would be built on a Romano-British settlement and a possible Civil War battlefield, and under planning laws should not be allowed to go ahead. Other objectors said the traffic surveys were flawed.

Councillor Mark Chatburn, who sits on the planning commitee, said: "The traffic mitigation we have heard so much about in the report frankly beggars belief.

"Journey times will increase by nearly 18 per cent in the High Street which is judged to not be a significant increase. In whose world is 18 per cent not significant?"

Other councillors spoke about the need for housing provision in the borough, with a shortfall of 5,000 homes in the next five years.

The vote was split, but Coun Gibson's casting vote carried the proposal.

  • Campaigners from the Keep Eaglescliffe Special group were celebrating last night after plans to build hundreds of homes on fields at Urlay Nook on the edge of Eaglescliffe were turned down at the same meeting.

Councillors voted 9-2 against the proposals by Taylor Wimpey, with two abstaining from the vote.

Over 20 objectors spoke about traffic issues, the lack of bus services and infrastructure on the site, and the pressure the development would put on both primary and secondary school places.