Sun Lane, mark II?
Many people will have noticed that the new Local Plan is out for public consultation, and that Great Pasture (H119) forms part of proposals. Then there are housing sites (H57), in Menston which is already approved for development, H383 and H385, both in Ben Rhydding, neither of which lie in the zone of influence of the SPA/SAC (See below, link here).
To state the obvious, do we have our eye on the ball, or are we all distracted by Great Pasture? In Burley, there’s a site at Scalbor House, and let’s not forget a previous planning application behind St. Mary’s church in the conservation area.
Notwithstanding that fact, we still have a remaining housing allocation at Scalbor House (Regulation 18) for 110 units as detailed in the SHLAA (Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment), back in 2021.
The site (BU2/H) at Scalbor House, has access issues (shown below).
All of these sites lie within the Wharfedale ward. I’ll make representations as each site comes forward for planning approval.
Regulation 19 Local Plan consultation.
This is a very substantial document, containing almost 1,379 pages.
- Burley in Wharfedale – Site Allocations, page 1323. Other pages 27, 51, 55, 271, 451
- Ben Rhydding – Site Allocations, page 1335 and 1338.
- Menston – Site Allocations, page 1353 (already approved)
The temptation is to read the main consultation document and not to bother with the underlying policy detail, all are equally important. Given the context of Regulation 19, it’s also important to look at and consider historical documents. These include Neighbourhood Plans, some of which have been updated.
The entire local plan is at https://www.bradford.gov.uk/planning-and-building-control/planning-policy/bradford-district-local-plan/?Folder=/BDLP/Reg19 and is comprised of around 100 additional policy documents in 7 main categories, so there’s lots to digest in addition to site allocations that may come forward. The full consultation is at https://bradford.oc2.uk/
For context, see also the West Yorkshire Combined Authority SDS (Spatial Development Strategy).
Otley Road, Burley in Wharfedale.
A few people have questioned why there’s no development along Otley Road. That area lies outside Burley’s settlement boundary. Thinking bigger picture, if development was allowed along that stretch of Otley Road corridoor, what would the implications for housing along Bradford Road towards Otley, as the settlement boundary would be significantly larger.
Can I encourage residents to respond?
Responses are important, the last time a consultation took place there was around a 1,000 respondents. Many of the respondents are house builders, architects, and othe professionals who are engaged in the housing market. It is they who have the internal resource, legal representation and capital to look at the whole proposal. Joe Public, I’m afraid as usual, is on the back foot.
And finally.
You can look back to Sun Lane for a steer on objecting to new developments, although it’s not particularly easy to point to lessons learned at this stage. I have been asked to supply the details for Sun Lane, and whilst I have retained copies of everything, it’s impossible to email documentation. Many files are 50Mb or larger, and in total I have stored 2TB of information dating back to 2016.
There’s scope to object to any proposal, the trick is for objections to carry legal weight within the national planning framework. But then there’s the new ‘Golden Rules’ which effectively hamstring any opposition to development.
Think that objecting to a new development is easy, it’s not. You need cite the relevant policy, produce evidence, and show how this conflicts with national planning policy. National policy has undergone a seismic change since the inquiry of 2018, and changes ahve made it more difficult to challenge development. Like it or not, the Secretary of State can simply overrule a local decision in favour of development.
The “Golden Rules” for Major Development.
Landowners and developers cannot just build anything on the Grey Belt. To get permission for major housing projects, they must meet ‘strict‘ criteria:
- Affordable Housing: A minimum target of 50% affordable housing (with a floor requirement to provide at least 15% above the existing local policy target), currently set at 30% in Wharfedale.
- Infrastructure: Developers must fund or provide necessary local or national infrastructure (e.g., schools, GP surgeries, transport to meet the demand that new housing delivers).
- Green Space: Projects must deliver new or vastly improved public green spaces.
And I have already experienced in Menston, Green space isn’t as important as you may think. Here’s the extract from my response to the application:
Biodiversity
The following are absent from the biodiversity report, although the outline planning assessment, bullet 3.10 states that, “enhance landscape views and contribute to overall Biodiversity Net Gain on the Site”. This is patently untrue given that BNG is to be met off-site.
- Bat roosting potential survey on trees to be removed
- Bat Activity Surveys
- Breeding Bird Survey
- Badger Survey (if prior to any works from 12 month of the survey)
- Water vole survey
- White-Claw crayfish
The application should not be determined unless these issues are addressed by the applicant, see Section 99 of ODPM Circular 06/2005.
Biodiversity net gain.
Here again, the biodiversity report BNG lacks sufficient detail for a LPA to determine whether the application meets the current 10% gain in biodiversity.
If the BNG is to be met off-site, which is a measure of last resort, according to Bradford’s planning department, I would seek the following assurance:
- That any offsite BNG is monitored at the point of approval and that this is carried out annually for a period of not less than 10-years.
- That any such scheme is an approved scheme, and further that the scheme is not being utilised by other developers for the same BNG purpose. That is, that the proposed BNG is exclusive to Avant.
Grey Belt assessment.
The site is currently designated as Green belt land (section 2.6 of the outline planning assessment) and is not identified as a development site in Bradford’s Core Strategy.
And the result, approval of plans.
