North Yorkshire Council has approved long-awaited plans to build 20 homes on Masham’s former auction mart site.
Farmers Livestock Mart was on the northern edge of the market town and held weekly sheep and cattle sales until it closed in 2006.
Skipton-based Craven Cattle Marts were running the auctions but the company blamed at the time a difficult economic climate for farming following the foot and mouth disease.
Since the closure, the site has been cleared of buildings and is now mainly overgrown hardstanding and rubble.
Plans for housing on the site have been mooted for almost 20 years and the approved scheme was put forward by Ripon-based developer Briahaze Village Homes Ltd.
It has been reduced from the 26 homes which was originally submitted.
The homes will range from 1-bed cottages to 5-bed detached homes. Six will be classed as affordable.
The developer says the building style will reflect the traditional form of Masham.
The junction between Fearby Road and Leyburn Road will also be remodelled to provide a new site access road into the site.
New pedestrian crossings will be created to link across Leyburn Road into the town centre. Each property will have a private driveway with some having a garage.
Masham Parish Council said it did not object or support the proposals but said the developer should account for potential flooding from Swinney Beck which comes down Fearby Road onto the site.
Planning documents submitted by the developer said:
“The proposed houses have been carefully designed to consider the local character and distinctiveness of Masham.
"The development would be of similar scale and massing to adjacent houses and sit comfortably within the general form and massing of the town as a whole.”
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