Steeton councillors are concerned that plans for a new 220-home development at Thornhill Road could cause traffic jams in the village.

Last week Steeton-with-Eastburn Parish Council carried out its own traffic survey at the junction of Skipton Road and Thornhill Road, which would be used as the main access for the development.

Councillors armed with tally counters counted 2,000 cars passing through the junction during a busy two-and-a-half-hour period last Wednesday morning.

They also surveyed traffic over a three-hour period in the afternoon.

Councillor Roger Lambert said: “We want to make Steeton a better place to live and the aspect of this huge scheme that concerns us most is the traffic.

“There’s no way you can have 20 more cars backing up onto Thornhill Road. It’ll jam up the road. It’s the wrong route for access to the development.”

Councillor Lambert said the parish council had conducted its own traffic survey because of concerns about a transport assessment used by the developer, Redrow Homes.

“Their assumption makes no recognition of standing traffic that occurs at various times of day,” he said. “They may have underestimated the number of cars using the road.”

Councillor David Mullen, chairman of the parish council, said between 7am and 9.30am last Wednesday there was consistent build-up of Keighley-bound traffic on Skipton Road that queued from Station Road to Airedale Hospital for a period of 75 minutes.

“What we want to do is get evidence of what we already knew anecdotally,” said Councillor Mullen. “We want to see how our figures stack up with those used by the developer.”

Councillor Mullen said 220 more houses would increase the size of the village by 15 per cent, which he warned would have an impact on local amenities.

“The schools are full, the doctors’ surgery is full and there are not many shops, which means people will have to go out of the village to shop,” he said.

“It’s a given that these houses are going to be built, but what the parish council and residents want is that this will sit comfortably in Steeton.”

At a council meeting earlier this month, members raised a number of concerns about the development.

They recommended refusal of the application on the grounds that the documents supplied with the plan did not provide enough information to make an informed recommendation.

A spokesman for Redrow Homes said: “This is land already approved for residential development, including the access. Local businesses should benefit from an influx of new home owners and our development will also create much needed jobs.”