A developer has called for land to be released on at least one site in Bingley for a major housing development within the next six years.

Michael Courcier, representing Redrow Homes, said at a public inquiry that out of 827 new homes expected to be built in Bingley during that period, 462 were at Warren Lane.

And he said that even the Council recognised access to the site at Warren Lane was poor and building could not start until the completion of the Bingley Relief Road.

He described land allocated in Bingley in the Council's controversial Unitary Development Plan's first six-year phase as "limited" and wants more released.

The public inquiry into the UDP, which will dictate land use across the district over the next 15 years, will deal with 7,000 objections and 700 issues.

The challenges are mainly from land-owners and developers who want "marketable" greenfield sites, rather than the many former industrial (brown field) sites the Council has earmarked for housing.

The Council has included in-fill sites between developments and conversions of existing buildings in its estimate of land, to meet housing requirements over the next 15 years. But at the end of the first week of the inquiry, held at Victoria Hall, Saltaire, Roy Dobson, representing David Wilson Homes, said: "I strongly fear many of these sites are loss-making. I am saying I won't look at a site where I would make a loss."

Planning consultants attending the round-table discussion about the UDP questioned the inclusion of land in the first phase of sites with out-of-date planning approval.

They said detailed inquiries should have been carried out by the Council about their suitability and why previously-planned housing developments had not gone ahead.

There were also calls for land allocated for development in the second phase of the UDP - including green belt - to be moved forward if it appeared the first phase, up to 2009, would not achieve the anticipated 9,700 homes.

The UDP provides for approximately 5,608 homes in Bradford, 827 in Bingley, 1,230 in Keighley, 92 in Queensbury and 288 in Ilkley. The rest would be dotted across the district.

But the Council's planning manager, Andy Haig, said the rate of house building would be monitored throughout the plan to pick up any shortfall.