A VILLAGER has voiced an emotional plea to stop a proposed road scheme, which he says will devastate his wife's business.

Selby councillor Brian Percival and his wife, Rosamund, will be the most severely affected by a proposed Highways Agency scheme to build a £3.9m flyover across the A64 at Bilbrough Top, between York and Tadcaster.

Slip roads, which form part of the proposed scheme, will bisect the couple's land off Colton Lane and will make it impossible to use the land for the breeding and rearing of horses.

Yesterday Mr Percival told a public inquiry that his wife, who runs a stud farm at the site and has lived there her whole life, would be devastated if the plans went ahead as proposed.

Mr Percival, who supports the idea of the scheme in principle, said: "My wife and I live in Springfield House and my wife is the owner of this property.

"My wife's father gave her the land in 1969 for the express purpose of maintaining her life-long passion for horses. This is her whole life.

"The land forms part of the former Old Land Farm that has been farmed continuously by my wife's family since 1922.

"If the Highways Agency's scheme is implemented, it will mean that the land is useless for breeding and rearing horses. This land is the only land available for the horses to run out on."

Mr Percival is backing an alternative scheme put forward by Whitbread, which owns the nearby Travel Inn, which keeps the slip road away from his land. He has also tabled his own alternative. Two other alternatives have come from used car dealership Robinsons of Colton and one from the Little Chef restaurant.

Yesterday the Highways Agency tabled an alteration to Mr Percival's proposal, which moves the slip road south and away from the high pressure gas main beneath.

Although the new road is closer to his land than in his own scheme, the alteration leaves one of his fields more or less intact.

That scheme will now be advertised and the public will have an opportunity to comment on it.

It may then be put forward as yet another alternative to the official Highways Agency proposal for consideration by the inspector.

The British Horse Society, which supports the proposed scheme, also spoke at the inquiry to ensure that equestrians were given adequate consideration.

The Highways Agency agreed to discuss detailed plans with the society should the scheme go ahead.

Updated: 12:53 Wednesday, September 19, 2001