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Members of the public will be able to have their say on where 33,000 homes should be built in Bradford in the next 17 years.
On Thursday, Bradford Council’s Reform UK led Executive voted to send the latest draft of Bradford’s Local Plan out to consultation.
What is the Local Plan?
The huge document sets out where housing and commercial development should take place in the district between now and 2043.
All council’s are required to have an up to date Local Plan, but Bradford’s most up to date document setting out development sites was published in 2005.
The draft plan includes hundreds of potential sites.
Debate is opened up
At Thursday’s Executive, council leader Stephen Place said: “This is an important stage of development for the Local Plan.
“Local Plans generate strong views, and that is understandable. It is important we are clear what we are deciding here today.
"We are not being asked to approve the Local Plan or individual development sites.
“We’re being asked to decide if the draft should be published for consultation so people can see it, consider it and have their say.
“Publishing this draft plan doesn’t close down debate, it opens it up.”
Deputy Leader Councillor Andrew Judson said: “Let me be absolutely clear – we are not adopting the Local Plan today, we are not signing off on it today.
“This document is a plan for at least 33,000 new homes and 110.5 hectares of employment land that will support 30,000 jobs.
“We are taking a Brownfield approach first. Two thirds of the housing proposed is in Bradford city centre.
“I know there is great concern about Green Belt. Officers assessed over 1,000 potential for this draft plan. Around one per cent of Bradford’s Green Belt will be used for site allocations, but that could have been double.
“We didn’t just accept sites for development – sites have been rejected.
“Without a Local Plan, we are at the mercy of speculative applications.”
What happens next?
He said any comments made during the consultation would come back to the council before the end of the year, when all 90 members of the authority will have the chance to vote on the document.
The consultation period will last six weeks, and a report on the responses will go before Bradford Council in December.
Concerns over how Local Plan was put together
Councillor Rebecca Poulsen (Cons, Worth Valley) pointed out that the last draft of the plan was published five years ago, and questioned why there had been such a big delay to get to this stage.
She said the document, which is over 1,200 pages long, was difficult to navigate, and it had taken her hours to find all the site allocations in her ward.
Cllr Poulsen added: “There are errors in this report, it feels thrown together and that really concerns me.”
David Shepherd, Director of Place, said there had been numerous changes to national planning policy since the last draft, meaning many sections needed to be re-visited.
Cllr Poulsen was told that when the consultation starts on Monday the draft will be in a much more readable and easy to navigate form.
Members were told that if the draft plan was not approved in the coming months, it could be two to three years before the council was able to re-submit it due to looming changes to planning rules.
Richard Hollinson, assistant director for planning, said if the process went smoothly the plan would be adopted in 2028.
The Executive voted to send the draft plan to public consultation, which starts on Monday.