THE firm behind a proposal for one of largest leisure developments Yorkshire Dales has seen in decades has revealed a revised scheme in a bid to overcome a spectrum of objections and concerns from residents and national park planners.

Natural Land said while it has cut the scale of its planned eco-friendly luxury tourist destination at the former Second World War evacuees camp at Linton, the scheme would still have transformative and long-lasting economic benefits for the national park’s economy, which would be particularly important post-coronavirus.

The revamped proposal follows it facing criticism both for its initial proposals lodged with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority 18 months ago and also over its plan in 2018 to extend the UK’s first luxury sustainable holiday location near Richmond.

Richmondshire District councillors approved the Richmond scheme despite numerous concerns being raised by residents over the firm’s care for the site.

Last year, residents claimed the Linton Camp scheme would be a “gross over development of the site for the wrong purpose”, would harm the landscape, create light pollution and drainage issues, and lead to too much traffic on nearby roads.

Natural Land said as the site is designated for development within the Local Plan, it had used a 3D model to see how the buildings could be more sensitive to the site, leading to the planned 6,446sq m hotel and self-catering properties being cut by more than 2,200sq m, resulting in 12 bedrooms and five self-catering properties being removed.

Hardstanding has been cut by 3,816sq m and the revised scheme also features a reduced visual impact, improved biodiversity, double the number of trees on site, the introduction of wetlands, green roofs on all buildings and a bat and owl barn.

It said 60 per cent of the estimated £10m construction value would be placed with local sub-contractors and 40 full-time jobs would be created on site, ranging from management to concierge and housekeeping to service staff.

A Natural Land spokesman said: “A combination of work with service providers, using the local supply chain and guest spend in the local community is expected to contribute up to £1.3m per annum the economy. The traffic impact has been reassessed and shown to have low level of impact on a road network operating well below capacity. To minimise any potential traffic impact on surrounding villages a low emission shuttle service will take guests into Linton and Grassington and will double up as a staff shuttle bus.”

The firm will unveil its revised plans at a public drop-in event at the site on Thursday and Friday, from 11am until 5pm.