CAMPAIGNERS battling plans for a large scale retirement village they feel will dwarf their homes are heading for a crunch meeting with a local MP.

Nigel and Judy Bell, owners of Shepherd’s Purse cheese company at Newsham, near Thirsk, want to build a 150 unit site at Thornton-le-Moor Villagers in Thornton-le-Moor and nearby South Otterington, close to Thirsk, are angry at the plan for a 60-acre site dubbed Thornton Gate.

So they are to meet Anne McIntosh, the Vale of York MP and the Shadow Environment Minister, to try to draft her in to help them rebut the idea.

So far she has declined to help the protesters but Ian Woods, chairman of Thornton-le-Moor Parish Council and a member of the Thornton-le-Moor Action Group, hopes she can help.

He said: "This is the wrong scheme and in the wrong place. We have a meeting with Miss McIntosh at her political surgery about this on Friday, March 5.

"We are to continue the fight as the reasons for stopping this include that it would be better in an urban area with access to shops and doctors.

"This will dwarf Thornton-le-Moor completely and it is for people aged 55-years and above. They will have cars and this will cause traffic problems.

"The next step is to tell people to write to the district council to voice their objections and a special meeting is being held in the village on Monday, March 29."

Initial plans for a scheme, then called Thornton Fields, for 311 homes to provide a base for 440 residents and 120 staff were unveiled last year which villagers fought against.

They were submitted to Hambleton District Council which was set to refuse them but the scheme was withdrawn before a decision was made.

Earlier this year the applicants entered the smaller Thornton Gate plan for residential units with parking and other facilities with the district council.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England is backing the residents’ action group against the multi-million pound project.

Miss McIntosh is to hold her surgery at Wetherspoons pub, in Thirsk.

She said: "I don’t get involved in planning matters and I’m not commenting on this one or about who is coming to my surgery."

Mr and Mrs Bell declined to comment on the project but their agent John Goodwin, the planning partner with Carter Jonas, of Harrogate, did.

He said: "We told the local community what the proposals were and the applicants offered an open house to anybody who wanted to discuss them and I think two people took them up on it.

"The application is in the form it’s in because as we feel it is appropriate like that. We have to wait and see what the planning officers and councillors have to say."

The district council hopes its development control committee may discuss the plan at its meeting on April 1 but it may be put back to April 29.