God's Own Country' is a phrase often used to describe Yorkshire - and with very good reason.

Among the many delights that England's largest county has to offer is a green rural landscape to rival any in the world. Unfortunately it is a landscape now under serious threat from Gordon Brown's Government.

On becoming Prime Minister earlier this year, one of Mr Brown's first stated aims was to build three million new houses across the country without encroaching on the green belt.

This was a laudable ambition. It was also, according to experts, unachievable with many pointing out that realistically only one million houses could be constructed without the need to tear up green field sites.

In the last month the story has progressed in a sadly predictable but extremely worrying direction after it was revealed that the Government now wished to double the number of houses to be built in Yorkshire each year from 15,000 to 30,000.

Ministers have also demanded a review of West Yorkshire's green belt, an almost certain sign that we can expect large numbers of fields to be concreted over.

Part-time Yorkshire Minister Caroline Flint reinforced this as recently as last Thursday in comments given to the Telegraph & Argus.

In Bradford's case, the Government has instructed the Council to facilitate the delivery of some 50,000 new houses across the district by 2026.

If this was not difficult enough, they have made matters much worse by ruling out building any of these additional houses on existing brown field sites if the district is to receive any additional funding for essential infrastructural improvements such as upgrading our creaking local transport networks.

We recognise that when house prices are approaching 8.5 times the average wage and when our social housing has long waiting lists, we need to contribute positively in delivering affordable homes for our district.

And "homes" is the answer here.

Unfortunately the Government is approaching this issue from an accountant's point of view. For them, this is all about numbers, not homes and communities.

As a local politician, I believe I have a responsibility to act on behalf of local residents to protect our green belt. Although many people looking at Bradford from the outside may regard our city as an urban metropolis, we know one of our greatest assets is our countryside which covers nearly two-thirds of the district.

To succeed in our wider ambitions for local people, we need to complement the regeneration which is going on in our existing conurbation with what we are doing to protect rural areas.

Towns and cities only come to life when people live in them and part of our challenge is to help introduce new housing developments right at the core of our urban centres using existing brown field sites.

As well as further utilising the Council's considerable land assets, an excellent example of this would be the proposed new canal project.

Meanwhile, we must continue to do everything we can to maintain the beauty and integrity of our rolling rural landscapes.

Rather than be told by others how we shape our district, we must bring together the relevant public sector agencies, business representatives and Council officers in Bradford and take ownership of this process for ourselves.

The decisions we make over the coming months will influence housing in our district over the next 30 years and are too important to be left to Ministers and their officials in London with no idea of local need or sensitivities.

For my part, my colleagues and I will literally not give ground easily on this matter and I predict a long battle ahead.

However, we go into this fight certain in the knowledge that we have right on our side and the huge support of local people behind us.

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