Extra homes brings spark to firework plan

KIRKLEES Council planning officers are urging councillors to back a huge Huddersfield housing development now 70 more houses have been squeezed on and the developer has more than doubled the cash it is giving to the public purse.

The Black Cat Fireworks site at Crosland Moor was a target for hundreds of new homes in 2017.

But the 700-home plan was unusually rejected for not having enough houses on it.

Now a 770-home plan looks set to get the green light at a Kirklees Council planning meeting next week. Planning officers have recommended its approval – but councillors will make the final decision.

The plan was initially knocked back as officials strove to meet tough targets for building new homes.

They feared the prime site off Blackmoorfoot Road was not making the best use of the land amid pressure from government to build about 31,000 homes by 2031.

Council papers said the residential scheme had only 32 dwellings per hectare – three per hectare fewer than the density it normally demands.

More than two years on and the firm has amended its plans to correct that and also increased its contributions to community infrastructure to more than £2m. The financial offer to the local community was deemed insufficient the first time round and has been renegotiated by council officers.

Applicants, the Empire Knight Group Ltd, will have to hand over £1.3m to boost the council’s nearby schools – double the amount it offered in 2017. It will provide a further £553,000 towards Kirklees Council’s Longroyd Bridge Junction upgrade scheme while another £412,000 payment provided by the developer will be pumped into public transport improvements in the area. The new estate is set to feature a new doctor’s surgery and some kind of retail, food or community premises. Seventy of the total dwellings will be care apartments for the elderly. The large site remains the home of Black Cat and Standard Fireworks but it is not a production facility and there are only about 25 employees at the site, council documents reveal.

Councillors on the Strategic Planning Committee will rule on it at a virtual meeting on April 28.