Buses boost pledge for York's 'garden village'

Developers behind plans for a new "garden village" near York, where concerns have been raised about increased traffic congestion, have said the scheme would bring a "significant" boost to local buses.

Caddick Group, part of the team behind the Langwith project at Elvington Airfield, has said it hopes to apply for outline planning permission early next year.

Speaking at a public consultation event, local resident Richard Fawcett said: "Infrastructure is the real issue here, transport being the main one."

Caddick's Chris Procter said: "We're still working on the detail, but there'll be a significant improvement to bus services. To get people out of their cars, we need to get them onto buses."

Tuesday's event, in the Yorkshire Air Museum's Halifax Suite, was part of the ongoing consultation on plans for Langwith Village.

If the plans are approved, almost 3,400 homes would be built at the former airfield, with developers saying the settlement would also feature new schools, shops, community and leisure facilities, as well as workplaces and active travel infrastructure.

The site of the proposed village is included in City of York Council's Local Plan, which sets out where development is due to take place in the coming years.

Procter said to encourage people to use the bus, instead of their car, the developers were aware they needed to provide "services that are commensurate with the demand we expect from the scheme".

He said providing bus services that met Langwith's demand was a "requirement to be done as early as possible".

He added: "So making sure we have people, when they move in here, creating their behaviour from day one. So we want to make sure they have the ability to get on the bus.

"That might be, initially, linkages to the park and ride. So we make sure we get the frequency in as early as we can, and then we get diversity by linking in other routes.

"There will be a very significant intervention in the bus service, creating a much better linkage to this site."

Fawcett said he wanted assurances on the transport plans because of existing traffic congestion on the routes between Elvington and York.

"It can take an hour to get into York in the morning and an hour to get out in the evening," he said.

"Improved bus services has to be a good option, as long as they go beyond the development and into the local community."

Laura, at the consultation event with her husband Martin and their son Oscar, said she wanted more information about the impact on school catchment areas, if the village is built.

The family live in Wheldrake and, Laura said, there were questions about how traffic from the planned village would affect already busy roads.

"It's a concern. Quite a lot of traffic already goes through Wheldrake. I'm not sure how it's going to be directed around, or if there'll be more traffic. With over 3,000 homes, there'd be quite a lot of traffic, I'd imagine," she said.

Martin said he wanted more detail on cycleways from Wheldrake and the surrounding areas.

"Can the children cycle from one place to another? And I'm not really sure about the access roads, so I don't know what the implication will be for traffic.

"I guess for most people it's pressure on local services. Knowing what's coming and wanting to know how they will alleviate those pressures."

Procter said the partnership was "very keen" to develop a "strong and comprehensive" cycle network.

He said: "One of the key bits of feedback we've been getting from this consistently is the need to develop the linkages to Wheldrake and Elvington."

And he said the consultation process continued, with a further event planned in York Guildhall at the end of October.

"It will involve stakeholders who've been involved in the process before," Procter said.

"We'll then take all the information, from this event and the future event, into a statement of community involvement, engaging that into the masterplan as we've built it up.

"We'll then bring that forward for an application.

"The most likely timescale is the early part of next year, but that's subject to change as we get the design and it evolves."

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