The Joseph Rowntree Foundation's latest model village will not be completed until 2009 – three years later than planned.
The £45m Derwenthorpe scheme – renamed from New Osbaldwick – on the outskirts of York is intended to cater for families, elderly people and the disabled.

But it has run into fierce opposition from local people and the Conservative MP for Ryedale, John Greenaway, because it will be built on 20 ha of greenfield land.

Project manager Ian Atkinson said: "The parish council is openly in opposition and residents have lobbied the Environment Agency, MPs, councillors, anyone they can."

The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, which is developing the first 65 of the 540 homes planned, also hit problems with the area's draft local plan. The plan does not designate the proposed site for housing so the trust has been forced to compile a lengthy environmental impact statement.

In July 2002 the foundation said it hoped to have completed "about 500 homes" in 2006/7. But Atkinson said: "There is no way we'll be able to do 2006 now. It'll be 2009 at the earliest.

"The original estimate was probably over-optimistic."

He continued: "This is a problem for York as we are simply not meeting the dramatic increase in demand for affordable housing as a result of house prices continuing to rocket.

"We are a year behind where we want to be. We have hit all sorts of technical delays which have meant we only put in our planning application last August. We had originally hoped to have secured planning permission by the end of 2003 – the earliest this can now happen is the end of June."

Source

Housing Today