Residents react to new plans for 376 homes at Yarm’'s Mount Leven

SOME IMPRESSED WHILE OTHERS FEAR THE AREA IS AT 'BURSTING POINT'

- By GARETH LIGHTFOOT Local democracy reporter

AS people pore over plans laid out on boards and trestle tables, one woman’s pen hovers over a questionnaire. “How do you spell ‘chaos’?” she asks.

Miller Homes’ housing proposals are attracting a mix of reactions at this drop-in, and this attendee appears to be a critic, chiefly of the present government. “It was a lovely, lovely town and Labour have done their best to destroy it,” the resident says. “They've surrounded us with housing, out of all proportion.

“I don’t know whether they really need all this,’ she says. “It should be more of a community space for people. They've made it so you can’t move in Yarm now. We get gridlock and it’s just going to get worse.”

On the other hand Andy Hardcastle, 77, who lives in Ingleby Barwick, says he regularly travels into Yarm and is pleased by the plans: “It looks really good. It doesn’t seem to be a tinpot idea.

“It’s brilliant to come and see what they’re actually proposing.

“It’s clearly something they've given a lot of thought to, in the way the whole development is set out.

“The problem is always the traffic generation, but I don’t see that a lot of people would entering and exiting this type of development. There would be extra traffic but in the scheme of things I think it would still work OK.”

People trickled into the Worsall Village Hall in Yarm for a closer look at the developer's proposals for Mount Leven. 376 homes with two to five bedrooms, a care home and “community hub” including a community centre, well-being hub, farm shop, padel courts, picnic and play area and trim trail equipment, and a country park taking up a large strip of land along the 43-hectare site.