In 2021, Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) put in motion a plan to sell off an amount of green space for the purposes of “provision of affordable homes”. They entitled this project “Better Homes” (nobody with any imagination working in local government? why not consider the detrimental impact of removing green space and call it “Concrete Jungle”). In addition to land in Scarborough and Filey, it originally encompassed 4 tracts of land in the Whitby area – namely the former Golf Course land behind Love Lane, 2 tracts of land alongside Rievaulx Road, and a space near California Road (behind Abbot’s Walk). This proceeded through to an outline agreement (unsigned) with Lovell Homes before SBC was abolished. At the time, Whitby Area Development Trust sent a letter to SBC objecting to the disposal of 3 of the 4 tracts of land.
Nothing more was heard until Tuesday 17th June 2025 when it appeared on the agenda of an NYC Executive meeting. Item 6 presented a very similar arrangement, but this time with some different areas of land being proposed. The 2 tracts of land on Rievaulx Road are still listed, as is the former Golf Course land on Sandsend Road (labelled as “Sandsend Lane” in the NYC document, symptomatic of the level of local knowledge present in said organisation seemingly). The Whitby areas of land are shown on the map below.
The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) states
103. Access to a network of high quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and physical activity is important for the health and well-being of communities, and can deliver wider benefits for nature and support efforts to address climate change. Planning policies should be based on robust and up-to-date assessments of the need for open space, sport and recreation facilities (including quantitative or qualitative deficits or surpluses) and opportunities for new provision. Information gained from the assessments should be used to determine what open space, sport and recreational provision is needed, which plans should then seek to accommodate.
104. Existing open space, sports and recreational buildings and land, including playing fields and formal play spaces, should not be built on unless:
- an assessment has been undertaken which has clearly shown the open space, buildings or land to be surplus to requirements; or
- the loss resulting from the proposed development would be replaced by equivalent or better provision in terms of quantity and quality in a suitable location; or
- the development is for alternative sports and recreational provision, the benefits of which clearly outweigh the loss of the current or former use.
NYC do not possess an up-to-date assessment of the need for open space in this area. WCN do, and you can find it here. The most recent council assessment was in 2014, and not only did it contain errors, it is also now completely out of date. It concluded that Whitby does not have a surplus of open space. The situation is even worse now.
To summarise the current situation a deficit of 12.6ha of open space (5.4ha of Natural, 6.2ha of Urban Parks and 1.0ha of Sports), with a surplus of 2.7ha of Amenity open space (so an overall deficit of some 10ha). Note that this summary does not take account of accessibility of open space. The largest contributory open space in Whitby parish is West Cliff, and by this we mean the actual cliff (sloping at 30-40 degrees gradient). For an ageing population this is simply not accessible. Consequently the real measure of available, accessible open space is even worse.
The proposed use of former Golf Course is also of concern as the viability of the golf course is in significant doubt given that the part of coastline it borders is listed as not to be protected by the Environment Agency, and is apparently decaying at an alarming rate.
In the 2022 report by the Director of Public Health for NYCC which particularly looked at the effects of COVID and how it changed people’s habits, we see statements such as “There have been positive impacts from having accessible, local green spaces, which have supported both physical and mental health and wellbeing“, “Support equitable access to green space” and “However, access to gardens and good quality green spaces are not equitable across all parts of society“. Have other parts of NYC not got the memo? With a coastal health crisis and green space being acknowledged as very beneficial to people’s health and wellbeing why would anyone in their right mind think that building on green space was a good idea?
Any such proposed sell off will be resisted by Whitby Community Network.
We have written to the NYC Director of Public Health, Louise Wallace, who presented at one of our recent public meetings, for her thoughts on the continual depreciation of Whitby green space, as follows.
2 thoughts on “NYC Continual Desire to Build on Green Space – Lovell Homes venture”
the golf club have asked to have usage of the land behind love lane and were told it was to be sold imminently
there are 551 houses on market between postcodes yo21 and yo22, more coming on market every day, nothing selling. the mine is mothballed, double council tax not to mention world economic turmoil, this will not resolve itself anytime soon. the new McCarthy and stone flats are being offered to rent, house prices being reduced all the time, by to let so damaged by government policies that market is all but dead, stamp duty changes, do we really need more houses being built, no we do not. the power of government and councils has crashed the market completely, if there was a burning need for people to buy in Whitby there wouldnt be so many on the market.