THREE sites earmarked for dumping household waste and recycling centres have been ditched by North Yorkshire County Council.

But protests have failed to halt a new site in northern Harrogate.

The sites dropped from the revised plan are Brickyard Road, Boroughbridge; St James's Park, Knaresborough and Farnham Quarry, near Knaresborough.

But the household waste and recycling site for Oak Beck Park, Skipton Road, Harrogate is set to go ahead.

Twenty five objections had been tabled about the Oak Beck scheme, which is aimed at taking the pressure off the single site in Harrogate at Stonefall, opposite the Great Yorkshire Showground, in Wetherby Road.

Residents living in Eastville Terrace in Ripon Road, which overlook the Oak Beck site, fear litter, smell, increased traffic, noise and vermin and say the development should be enclosed in a building. The county's Minerals and Waste Planning Unit is recommending the facility should be contained in a building.

Difficulties in securing land to develop the two Knaresborough sites - at St James's Park, near the town's bypass and Farnham Quarry - have been cited as the main reasons for dropping these plans.

Remaining in the plan are waste recovery facilities at Pontefract, Knottingley and Allerton Park Quarry, near Knaresborough.

Meanwhile, a proposed landfill recycling site at Tancred Quarry between Scorton and Catterick Bridge has been scrapped. This, says the county council, is because an application for planning permission has been tabled for an integrated waste management facility at the site.

The original scheme brought 76 objections which included residents, developers, parish councils and an Action Against the Tip group, as well as Richmondshire District Council.