RESIDENTS have reacted angrily to plans to create an auction mart on a greenfield site, parts of which they said were less than 80 yards from their estate.

Proposals to move Northallerton Auction Mart to land off the Thirsk road have been submitted to planners.

Residents have responded by forming an action group to fight the scheme and are planning to send hundreds of protest letters to Hambleton District Council.

Bosses at the mart want to move it from its current site in the town, and it had originally been thought a site off Darlington Road had been earmarked.

Action group leader Robert Beaver said yesterday: "There is a lot of anger about this and we intend to fight it all the way."

He said householders on both the St James estate and the neighbouring Oak Tree estate were enraged by the idea of putting such an industrial site so close to a residential one.

The proposals envisage a site far larger than the town's Tesco store and involve parking spaces for more than 200 cars and 12 articulated lorries.

"It is planned to operate from 6am to 10pm seven days a week but this land is designated on the planning map for agricultural use only," he said.

Residents are also concerned that the mart would be created on the flood plain - and said the last floods caused £2.3m of damage to the estate.

"If the building was allowed, the dangers of further flooding are made even more likely," said action group spokesman Paul Fisher.

"Water relief calculations only allow for greenfield run-off for the area and could not cope with increased building surface water run-off."

The action group is also calling on the local authority to not consider the plans until a traffic-flow impact study has been made.

"With lorries arriving early in the morning and leaving late at night, the noise is going to be a problem, as will the sounds and smells from the cattle," said Mr Fisher.

Romanby Parish Council has already been inundated with unfavourable comments about the scheme.

It is expected that Hambleton's development control committee will consider the proposals when it meets at the end of this month.