Appeal 6002426

The appeal is dismissed.

The main issue in the appeal is the effect of the proposal on highway safety.

The field adjacent to the appeal site currently has permission for use as a car boot sale for a maximum of 28 days per annum. The appellant has indicated that when the car boot sale operates fencing is used within the field to create separate areas for sellers and buyers. Access to the site is from the A19, a single carriageway, national speed limit road that carries high volumes of traffic. The application form indicates that the current site has capacity for [address]. Whilst there is a separate entrance and exit to the site, there is no dedicated right hand turning facility in the road at the entrance and it is not disputed that currently the car boot sale creates traffic to queue on the highways. The highway authority indicates that traffic can be backed up to the A19 / A168 junction which they state is a ‘collision cluster site’.

It is proposed to use the field that constitutes the appeal site to expand the footprint of the car boot sale. The appellant has stated that it is the intention to use the appeal site to accommodate the sellers with the existing field to be used for parking for buyers. The application form indicates that this would create an additional 500 spaces

At appeal stage the appellant has stated that it was not in fact the intention to increase the scale of the event or to create additional parking spaces but simply to create more space for parking. The aim of this was to prevent cars being ‘held’ at the entrance to the site whilst looking for a space to park, enabling them to enter more quickly and thus reduce queueing on the highway.

However, whilst this might have been the intention, the application form clearly indicates that the application was to create an additional 500 parking spaces, bringing the total on the site to 1,000. In addition, the description of the development indicates that it is due to the growth in the popularity of the car boot sale that more parking space is required.

The effect of the appeal proposal is to increase the footprint of the car boot sale, increasing the amount of room for both sellers and for buyers to park. Moreover, since this is a field rather than a formally laid out car park, the only limitation on the number of cars that can park is the size of the field. As a result, the appeal proposal in increasing the amount of space available for people to park would inevitably increase the amount of parking spaces available. This in turn could lead to an increase in the number of visitors attracted to the event.

I note that the road signage used for the event may all be approved and acceptable, and that the accident data shows there have been no collisions directly related to turning manoeuvres at the entrance and exit, even if there have been other collisions in the vicinity. Nonetheless, the current operation of the car boot sale already causes significant queuing on the A19, preventing the free flow of traffic. Increasing the amount of car parking available on the site has the potential to increase vehicle movements associated with the use of the site for a car boot sale. Given the additional queuing this could cause on the highway, this would be detrimental to highway safety and the free flow of traffic.

Therefore, I consider the proposal would have an unacceptable effect on highway safety. Accordingly, it would be contrary to Policy IC2 of the Hambleton Local Plan (adopted February 2022) which seeks to ensure developments would not compromise highway safety.

For the reasons set out above, I conclude the appeal should be dismissed.