Members of RASH – Residents Against Spoiling Harrogate – told a public meeting last week there are serious problems with the new Local Development Framework (LDF) proposals that will affect the town for years to come.

RASH member Terry Byrne said the LDF plans would result in more than 3,000 adults and 650 children moving into the west of the town alone, and Beckwithshaw Parish Councillor Michael Clarke criticised the council's approach for appraising the sites put forward for consideration.

Mr Clarke claimed the "broad brush" method of ticks and crosses was overly simplistic and subjective, rather than independent and effective and he said there was a potential conflict of interests in the decision-making process.

He told the meeting that five of Harrogate Council's seven Cabinet members lived in the town, with three of these five – including cabinet member for planning and transport Councillor Don Mackenzie – living near a possible development site in Pannal.

Terry Byrne, who compared the council's expansion plans to Britain's failed attempt to capture several bridges in the Second World War movie A Bridge Too Far, said: "I think that if this strategy gets passed, or even if it gets close to being passed, then we will be paying the price for years to come and we should not have to do that."

Mr Byrne, representing the Harlow and Pannal Ash Residents' Association, added: "I am gravely concerned by how this is being driven through," and he referred to the council's report which said the documents had been approved for submission to the Core Strategy before they were sent for consultation.

Chartered building surveyor Peter Whittle said there were many "missing links" in the plans, including the absence of an inner northern relief road which would help traffic flow on Wetherby Road and Skipton Road.

Mr Whittle added: "If the Government wants the council to build the houses then it has to allow it to provide the roads.

"We need to be cautious about locking Harrogate in to a scheme which is inflexible.

"I think that without the proper information we are being asked to make an uninformed choice and we deserve better."

Rosemary Carnaghan, chairwoman of the Duchy Residents' Association, said everything needed to be right from the beginning.

She said: "RASH is not against houses. We need housing. We recognise the problems that many people working and living here face trying to find a suitable home.

"However, we do expect there to be an impartial and objective means of looking at areas for housing and we do expect the method chosen to be correctly applied.