‘Brighouse hit by plans for housing’

BRIGHOUSE is bearing the brunt of massive housing developments after proposals were signed off by Calderdale Council.

That’s the claim of Conservative councillors from Brighouse, Rastrick, Hipperholme and Lightcliffe, who say revised site allocations in the authority’s Local Plan “unfairly and deliberately” single out the wider Brighouse area for development.

It has been described extremely bad deal”.

But the claims have been condemned as misleading and dishonest by Labour rivals, who accused the Tories of posturing.

Earlier this month the council’s Cabinet agreed revised site allocations for housing and industry throughout Calderdale, which reflect the authority’s intention to reduce the total figure of new housing across the borough from 16,000 dwellings to around 11,500.

The Conservative group believes this reduced figure means many areas will be expected to accommodate significantly less housing growth than previously.

However it claims the overall percentage of new development occurring in the wider Brighouse area has actually increased following the latest revised housing allocations, with the figure for the wider Brighouse area coming in at around 4,500 new homes.

Brighouse councillor Howard Blagbrough stressed that the vast majority of sites were earmarked for development in his local area remain in the allocations despite objections from residents as well as long-term lobbying by councillors and Calder Valley MP Craig Whittaker.

He said: “Brighouse is now taking a higher percentage of all of the growth across Calderdale than it was in the draft plans released last summer. It is absolutely outrageous that Brighouse continues to be singled out to take an unfair and very disproportionate amount of development.”

Conservative group leader Scott Benton added: “It is clear that Brighouse has been singled out and is receiving an extremely bad deal from the Council.

“Both Labour and Liberal councillors have indicated that they are content to let Brighouse take the majority of new development to safeguard other areas of the borough and will be voting for the plan.

“All Conservative councillors will be voting against the Local Development Plan as it continues to be unfair and unfit for purpose. We welcome the reduction in the total number of houses required across Calderdale but our view on the Local Plan has not changed.”

Mr Whittaker denounced the council’s handling of the Local Plan as “shambolic”.

But senior Labour councillors rubbished the Tories’ stance and demanded they release their alternative plan.

Clr Dan Sutherland, Calderdale Cabinet member for planning, housing and environment, said the Conservatives had let Brighouse down. Instead Labour investment would lead to investment totalling “many tens of millions” of pounds that would help tackle traffic gridlock.

“Rather than engaging with the Local Plan in a constructive manner they’ve chosen to mislead the public and constantly undermine the area they claim to represent.

Whilst they have been posturing Labour have been doing the detailed work which has seen us achieve a 40% reduction in the amount of land we have to allocate for housing across Calderdale with most of the land saved being in the Green Belt.

“By using the Garden Suburb model we can create well planned communities that include schools, parks and around a third of the land allocated will be open green space for all to enjoy. The suggestion that we have no plans for infrastructure is a bit nonsensical when we have plans for three schools, new jobs and highways improvements that Brighouse is crying out for.

“The Tories might attack our plan for Brighouse but at least we’ve got one. It’s about time they did their job and stopped shouting from the sidelines.”

Calderdale Council’s service lead for planning, Richard Seaman, said the revised draft Local Plan will be published this summer, and local people will have the chance to make formal representations at that point. Adoption of the plan, following receipt of an independent inspector’s report, is expected to be confirmed by the end of 2019.