RESIDENTS in Addingham have been advised to draw up their own design statement for the village to use as a weapon against rapacious developers.

Bradford Council leader Ian Greenwood urged parish councillors to get busy in time for the next Unitary Development Plan (UDP) due in two years time.

"The most important view about what this village should be is from the people who live in it," said Coun Greenwood.

He was responding to angry parish councillors who have been provided with a survey of supposedly vacant land in the village drawn up by Bradford Council planners.

The survey is a preliminary step in the forthcoming UDP which aims to find land for houses, employment and shops.

Parish councillor Lisle Richardson said it was obvious that planners had not visited the village when the survey was drawn up.

"With some of the land they have identified, it beggars belief they could consider building on it," said Coun Richardson.

He said some of the land identified for possible development sites was obviously unsuitable and people's time would be wasted my having to make formal objections to the planners.

Parish council vice-chairman John Baggeley said: "We get very cynical about the people who come out here to look at the village and their sensitivity."

He added: "I don't think we have any idea of what you see Addingham as and what use it is to you as a council."

Council chairman Stephen Crossley-Smith expressed the villagers' exasperation at the constant battle with housing developers.

"We think we have just got rid of the UDP and now we are off again," said Coun Crossley-Smith.

Coun Greenwood, who attended the meeting with Bradford Council acting chief executive Philip Robinson, said that he could understand the feelings of distance and alienation from villagers on the extreme edge of the Metropolitan area.

But he stressed that services in the village such as public transport, libraries and education in Addingham were better than in neighbouring authorities.

"If you look at the level of services we have tried to maintain, we have done better than many, many councils would have done," said Coun Greenwood.

The Labour Council leader urged parish councillors to make a survey of the village to draw up a complete design statement.

He said they could then start a dialogue with the planners over the future of the village as a whole rather than fighting over individual parcels of land as and when they arise.

"It is a question of opening a dialogue in a more constructive way than there has been in the past - it is extremely important that everyone feels engaged," Coun Greenwood said.

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