The Agritech scheme at Aiskew passed a planning milestone this month – albeit a small one, as we made a formal submission to the Council’s request for suitable sites for development.   Councils typically issue a “Call for Sites” as the first step in the preparation of a Local Plan, and we know that North Yorkshire Council are keen to undertake a review of the plan for the combined authority area.

The Call for Sites allows them to understand what sites might be available and for what land uses.  It isn’t unusual for them to receive dozens of submissions for housing schemes – but we reckon they will only have received one for an Agritech Park!

The submission we made is careful to point out that the proposal at Aiskew is specifically for an Agritech Park.  There will undoubtedly be a whole range of sites submitted to the Council that are for commercial and employment purposes, so we wanted to make absolutely sure that we had differentiated the scheme at Aiskew as something different.  When the Council considers the various sites sent to them we don’t want them to evaluate Aiskew alongside all the other general employment sites that have been submitted, because Aiskew is something different.

The opportunity for North Yorkshire to lead the way in promoting a completely integrated Agritech Park is so important that we don’t want the site to be lumped in with every other general employment site.  Whilst the provision of general employment sites is also important for the local economy, only Aiskew has a vision to deliver pure agritech facilities, planned to work in harmony with the existing agricultural economy and food production activities that are already long established in the area.

To ensure they couldn’t be under any illusion about what we were planning the Call for Sites submission we made comprised a comprehensive document, as well as a plan showing the outline of the site and the illustrative masterplan.  This submission also included a commentary on the planning approach that we anticipate in respect of the site and a “traffic light” appraisal of the key technical aspects, as we are in the process of assessing them.  We hope that this will help the Council and their team to understand the scheme and the uniqueness of what is being proposed, and that they will be clear that Aiskew isn’t just another employment allocation for storage and distribution sheds alongside the A1.

Rather, this is an innovative and ground-breaking proposal to change the way we address issues of food security, climate change and the uncertainties of global supply chains in a sustainable way.  We think these are all issues that the Council should be seeking to address for the people of North Yorkshire and beyond in its next Local Plan.

If you want to see and read the submission we made, then you can do so by clicking here.