A GOVERNMENT minister has stepped in to pause a controversial development blueprint, after Shipley's MP raised fears about the scale of building in the green belt.

But Bradford Council bosses have responded with anger, accusing Philip Davies of jeopardising the very fields he sought to protect.

The Council’s executive was today poised to back the core strategy of its Local Plan, which includes controversial proposals to build 11,000 homes on green belt land by 2030.

But in a dramatic twist, planning minister Gavin Barwell has told the authority to halt all proceedings while the Government investigates concerns raised by Conservative MP Mr Davies.

The delay has provoked angry responses with Council leader, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, accusing Mr Davies of “a completely irresponsible abuse of power”.

Mr Davies had lobbied Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to intervene after a Government planning inspector effectively ratified the Council’s strategy last month.

In particular, Mr Davies raised concerns about the loss of green belt which was being proposed for Wharfedale.

He said the plan should include rules that developers have to build on all available brownfield land before moving into the green belt.

And he said the core strategy would only bring back into use 3,000 of the 7,700 empty homes in the district.

Mr Barwell has told Bradford Council to stop all work on adopting the plan, while Communities Secretary Mr Javid looks into the matter and decides whether to intervene.

At the meeting of the Labour-run Council’s executive, an angry Cllr Hinchcliffe said the inspector had already listened to Mr Davies’ views and had decided to back the plan.

She said: “This is him taking his bat and ball home and triggering a process that is going to eat up the time and energy of the Government and the Council and will end up with nothing changing.”

The authority's portfolio holder for planning, Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, added: “This is an absolutely pathetic stunt, to be honest.

"He’s doing it to damage the council when he knows full well it is his own government that sets the rules on what Local Plans look like.”

Cllr Ross-Shaw said the plan protected 98 per cent of the green belt and national rules barred the brownfield-first approach Mr Davies was calling for.

He warned that without a Local Plan, the authority had much less power to influence development and any delay could leave the green belt at risk.

He said: “In effect, it is just exposing the areas he claims to be protecting.”

But Mr Davies rebuffed accusations he was abusing his power.

Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, he said: “I have got no power at all. If I had any power, this thing wouldn’t have been done in the first place.”

He said he did not know whether Mr Javid would intervene or not, but he had to make a stand for the sake of his constituents.

Mr Davies said it was a “nonsensical argument” to accuse him of jeopardising the green belt by delaying the plan.

He said: “Bradford Council are the ones who have delayed the plan in the first place. This plan could have been published ages ago, so actually they are the ones who have been slow.

“I’m not going to accept a bad plan because they have been slow off the mark in the first place.”

Councillor Martin Smith, the planning spokesman for the Council’s opposition Conservatives, said: “Thanks to Philip Davies MP, we have a stay of execution while ministers look at the proposals.

“We’ll be arguing once again that priority has to be given to the development of brownfield sites in what the local plan calls Bradford’s ‘inner urban’ areas, where demand is increasing rapidly.”

The news has also been welcomed by green space campaigners.

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth (Ind, Ilkley), who has been fighting plans to develop the green belt in Burley-in-Wharfedale, said: “Thank goodness Philip Davies did something and hopefully this means that sense may prevail.”

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