CIVIC leaders in a North Yorkshire market town have raised concerns about possible future housing pressure on their area.

Members of Easingwold Town Council used a meeting with planning officers to discuss the Hambleton Local Plan to raise questions about future developments.

Particularly controversial was the location of 2,800 homes - ,to be distributed throughout the district in coming years.

Coun John Richards said: "I certainly hope Easingwold doesn't get the same amount of homes as the other areas. We have already got more than our fair share of new housing compared to Thirsk, Northallerton and Bedale.

"We are about at saturation point with new buildings."

He said development pressure on the town had caused problems.

"We can't move in the town because of all the cars. The traffic is currently terrible, and any more building will only make it worse."

The Mayor, Diane Gallon, said: "We are not against developing the town and taking Easingwold forward, but we do need to make sure that everything that goes ahead is for the best of the town.

"We have just had 165 new dwellings built in the town, and we are reluctant to see any more developments like this unless community facilities are also improved."

She said the Galtres Centre was already always fully booked, and Easingwold School was fully subscribed and was running out of space to expand any further.

Coun Gallon said: "These issues need to be addressed before we build any more new housing. I understand that developers will favour housing projects as these give the biggest returns, but this cannot go on at the expense of the community's facilities."

The arguments were raised at a meeting with Mick Jewitt, Hambleton District Council's head of policy and economic development.

Mr Jewitt said: "We are currently carrying out consultation with all parties to find out what they think the Local Plan should be saying in broad terms.

"We will consider all these issues when writing the plan. The views expressed will definitely be taken into consideration."

He also appealed for more people to become involved in the consultation process.

"We are consulting with people before we write the plan to give them an input into it, and really want to encourage people to come forward and discuss this with us."

Updated: 10:38 Friday, April 11, 2003