A HOUSING boss has grabbed almost £200,000 from builders wanting to put extra houses on the site of the former Ilkley College.

Shabbir Mohammed will use the money to help prevent less well-off Ilkley residents having to leave the area because of the astronomical property prices.

Mr Mohammed said he stepped in quickly when he heard that the company developing the college site wanted to add eight extra houses to the development.

Mr Mohammed, whose Bradford Council department had already squeezed a massive £440,000 for affordable houses out of the expected development profits, went back for more.

He told a meeting of the Ilkley Parish Council planning committee that Miller Homes, who had taken over the development from Crest Homes, contacted the planners asking to put more houses on the site.

"They wanted to review the number of units so we had a second bite of the cherry," said Mr Mohammed.

Negotiations with the developer took place which resulted in the promise of another £192,000 commuted sum to be paid within 28 days of being granted planning permission to put another eight houses on the site.

Mr Mohammed said that although planning permission had not yet been granted for the extra houses it was expected to go through soon.

Ilkley planning officer Martyn Burke said that the deal had been agreed in principle and should be signed within the next two weeks.

"This money will have to be used to provide affordable housing in this area," said Mr Mohammed.

He explained that the land prices in Ilkley and the reluctance of developers in general made the provision of affordable housing extremely difficult.

But a development on the site of the former Wool Secretariat research building on Valley Drive gave the council a chance to insist on 12 flats for people who could not afford the market value of property.

Mr Mohammed's department of development and enabling negotiated a deal for Bellway Homes to provide 12 flats to the Home Housing Association at 25 per cent less than market value.

Despite this massive price cut, and a grant from the housing association's own funds of £90,000, Bradford Council still had to put up more than a quarter of a million pounds from its commuted sum account to keep the price down.

It means that the flats will be offered for rent of around £64-a-week, around £50 less than privately rented one-bedroom flats in Ilkley.

Mr Mohammed said: "The shortage of affordable housing in Ilkley is huge but we are making progress in providing affordable housing."

To push through its social housing policy, the council has been working closely with the Home Housing Association.

Jim Shepherd, Home's project controller, told the meeting that over the past year, the company had bought six properties in the Wharfe Valley, including Ilkley and Addingham, to offer at lower rents.

He said that the rural housing enablers working in Ilkley were partly employed to track planning applications which could be used to provide likely new properties for the housing association to invest in.

He said that negotiations could be difficult because providing affordable housing ate into the huge profits house builders wanted to make in the area.

But according to planning regulations, builders of sites of two acres or more had to provide either discounted homes, free, fully serviced, land for affordable housing, or a commuted sum cash payment. Bradford planners have stated that all new developments in Wharfedale have to include 40 per cent 'affordable' homes.

"Developers are very aggressive and they don't want to provide affordable housing," said Mr Shepherd.

In reply to a question from one of the parish councillors, Mr Mohammed said that local people would always be top of the list when affordable homes in the Ilkley area were allocated.

He said: "We have stipulated that local people will be given preference. Priority will be given to local people. There is no point the council having a policy of bringing people into the area if the local need is not being met."

He said that the next big battle with developers in Ilkley will be over the site of the former Middle School in Valley Drive, which has been identified by social housing enablers as a likely site for affordable housing.

It presently houses the Ilkley Grammar School Lower School but later on this year, pupils are due to move to the main school site in Cowpasture Road.

"I have had numerous telephone calls from every developer in the region asking about the discount and what they will have to provide," said Mr Mohammed.