OPINIONS: Council must have a rethink over controversial Starbucks drive-thru planned for Harrogate

Am I to understand that if a firm – in this case Euro Garages – is prepared to keep repeating their application for planning permission, even after nearly ten years, they are likely to succeed?

And if enough money is thrown at this, even lawyers representing the council will not now assist the council to fight against it and permission will be granted? I realise that there seem, to the council, to be no objections now and refusing would be a volte-face, but surely somebody somewhere could still put up a fight?

There are two main things to consider: the difficulty that emergency vehicles will have increased at this junction and it will also add to the difficulty of re-joining traffic going towards Wetherby. One would have to turn right across two lanes of traffic coming in from the Wetherby direction and act swiftly to link up on the correct side, when other traffic might have difficulty seeing you.

By its very nature, any vehicles driving through to use Starbucks will only be there for a short while and could be many. In the days of the old dental unit, the traffic using the area tended to be people who worked there, so their cars stayed for some hours and were only few in number.

Let us hope that the council will re-think the situation in time for the next planning application quite soon, on June 15.