A REPORT commissioned to examine the future need for housing in the Yorkshire and Humberside region has dire implications for the Wharfe and Aire valleys, a councillor has claimed.

Ilkley district and parish Councillor Anne Hawkesworth said: "The September Baker report suggests 7,500 dwellings should be sought in the Wharfe Valley near Menston, producing a settlement - perhaps in Lower Menston."

Further sites are to be investigated in the Aire Valley and an earlier planning report implied the necessity for

developing within the Craven Ward, which would could involve filling in the gap between Silsden and Steeton, Coun Hawkesworth said.

"There is no reason why the production of these dwellings has to be in an already densely populated area such as Bradford and Leeds.

"A new town could be just as possible in the Wolds where there are rail links and flat, easily developed areas," said Coun Hawkesworth.

The Baker report into the scale and location of development in Yorkshire and Humberside was commissioned by the Regional Planning Conference.

The implications for Bradford were discussed by the Council's transportation, planning and design sub-

committee this week.

Coun Hawkesworth, a member of the committee, said: "Residents in Craven and Menston must not just sit back and accept the inevitable. Questions need to be asked as to true projections.

"What is the true position as to single person households? How viable is the logic from financial as well as social reasons?

"Perhaps, as people live longer the whole concept of wider families will be looked into?" She added: "There are many open-ended questions to be asked before the Government establishes the right of developers to run riot in the green belt."

The report was commissioned to help devise long-term planning strategies such as the Unitary Development Plan (UDP) for the district.

In preparation for the district's next UDP councillors at the meeting discussed a survey of vacant brownfield sites in the Bradford district.

Councillor Hawkesworth has criticised the survey because it does not include sites which have empty and derelict buildings standing on them.

These will be the subject of a further report later on this year, but Coun Hawkesworth said a true picture of the amount of space available for house building would not emerge unless both lists were added together.

During the public inquiry into the last UDP Bradford planners were repeatedly

criticised for favouring

development sites in the green belt over inner city land formerly used for industrial purposes.

She said that vacant land survey only came up with around 200 sites in the whole of the Bradford district, many of which were in suburban or rural areas.

She added that if the survey included sites which at present had vacant, derelict mills standing upon them planners would have less need to encroach further into the green belt.

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