PEOPLE in Addingham are to club together to hire a solicitor to fight unwanted housing development on Manor Garth.

Civic society chairman John Beverland said that the parish council, a local family and the civic society were providing the funds to help defeat the application.

"Addingham, taken as a community, does not need or want houses on Manor Garth - as the matter is so important the expense is deemed worth it," said Mr Beverland.

Mr Beverland, a former parish councillor, has urged villagers to oppose the plan by writing to the planners at Keighley Town Hall.

"The more letters they get objecting the better - more notice is taken of personal letters rather than a petition," he said.

The plan to build 20 houses on the historic village green space has been described as the 'rape of the village' by Craven district councillor David Harrison (Con).

Mr Beverland said: "It is amazing that plans for Manor Garth were ever entertained in the first place."

The civic society is also opposed to a plan to construct houses on land near the sawmill, called the Acres, lying between Bark Lane and Main Street.

Mr Beverland said: "Here the parish council has drawn the planners' attention to several points which are unsatisfactory and the civic society is writing to support their objections."

He said people objecting to both plans should concentrate on points such as the effect on traffic, water services, the closeness of the expanded primary school and the effect on listed buildings such as in the Manor Garth application, the Rookery.