A FINAL decision on whether a children's day nursery can be built on an industrial estate at Northallerton will rest with a government planning inspector.

Kids Care, which says its proposal will create 15 full-time jobs and accommodate 70 children, has appealed against the refusal of planning permission for the building on the Standard Way estate in Yafforth Road.

Hambleton planning committee went against the advice of its officers by rejecting the scheme, maintaining that the site south of Mount View should be safeguarded for industrial or business development.

Members also claimed the plan did not comply with a policy saying new development should be in places where the need for travel was reduced.

They said the industrial estate was remote from houses, the nursery would generate additional traffic, footpaths were unsuitable for pedestrians with children and heavy lorries would prove hazardous.

But a spokesman for the Kids Care agents at Bishop Auckland said the reasons for refusal were unjustified and unreasonable. A day nursery had previously been approved on an industrial estate elsewhere in Hambleton, at Thirsk, and there were two others in similar surroundings at Newton Aycliffe. A range of other land uses, especially retail, had already been approved at Standard Way.

The spokesman added: "Standard Way would be well located to serve all the surrounding employment and business areas on the northern side of Northallerton.

"Parents travelling to work in those areas could safely deliver their children to the nursery and collect them afterwards. The location is highly accessible but also has the potential to reduce vehicle movements by allowing for a single trip to work via the nursery rather than a trip into another part of town and thereafter a trip to work.

"It has been established that there is a need for additional day nursery places in Northallerton and the proposal can meet such a need while also targeting that provision to an area where it will closely relate to the workplaces of working parents."

Answering the claim that the land should be safeguarded for industrial or business use, the spokesman said: "The nursery will create 15 full-time jobs in its own right, highly appropriate within a safeguarded employment area."

He claimed the concern expressed by the planning committee about traffic and highway issues had no reasonable foundation because the highways authority had raised no formal objections.

The spokesman said there was a lack of appropriate alternative sites in Northallerton and it could be argued on the basis of traffic movements that it was better to have the nursery on an industrial estate rather than among houses.

The nursery building would have four rooms for different age groups as well as an office, staff room, kitchen and toilets. It would be open for 12 hours Monday to Friday and four hours on Saturday.

The appeal will be dealt with on the basis of written representations by both sides and a site visit by the inspector