Footpath fight goes to public inquiry
LAND EARMARKED FOR HOUSING
CAMPAIGNERS in Huddersfield are gearing up for a public inquiry into a footpath row that could affect a proposed new housing estate.
An eight-acre parcel of land at Clayton Fields at Edgerton is earmarked for 40 houses as part of Kirklees Council’s local plan, which was adopted last February.
It will see tens of thousands of new homes built in the borough up to 2031.
However, the land is crisscrossed with footpaths, which will be lost if the housing estate is built.
Local campaigners who lost a bid to stop development will take their fight to prevent the paths being “stopped up” to a public inquiry next Tuesday (Jan 21).
Among them is Jonathan Adamson, who last year won a High Court battle to stop Kirklees Council bulldozing allotments in Birkby.
He said: “We are fighting to retain the footpaths and to optimise the landscape qualities and the bio-diversity of Clayton Fields for everybody, including the people who will buy the houses.
“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think that we needed housing in Kirklees.
“Huddersfield is awash with empty buildings. Lateral thinking could provide accommodation for a long time into the future.
“There is not one argument for taking green space like this.”
The tug-of-war over access to the land dates back almost a quarter of a century and is both complex and tortuous.
Clayton Fields was registered as a town and village green in the 1990s, which theoretically should have prevented any development as the site was ring-fenced and protected from development.
Campaigners who made footpath applications in the 1990s were persuaded by council officers not to proceed as village green registration made them unnecessary.
The town and village green was de-registered by the Supreme Court in 2014, which made it available for development as the footpaths were no longer protected.
Those reactivated footpath appeals are at the heart of the forthcoming public inquiry.
The public inquiry gets underway at the Yorkshire Children’s Centre on New North Parade, Huddersfield, on January 21 starting at 10am prompt.
CIty OF BRADFORD MEtrOPOLItAN DIstrICt COuNCIL, BANQuEtING SuItE, 2ND FLOOR,
CIty HALL, BRADFORD, BD1 1HY
PLEAsE NOtE tHAt tHE OffiCE wILL BE CLOsED BEtwEEN 12PM AND 2PM ON tHE DAy