Multi-million-pound-plans to create a Dales-style village at a beauty spot on land between Crossflatts and Micklethwaite have been revived.

It is well over five years since the Telegraph & Argus revealed the ambitious masterplan for the scheme spread over 43 acres of grazing land near the Leeds/Liverpool canal.

It included up to 300 buildings made up of luxury and affordable houses, flats over shops, corner stores, hotel, community centre, cafes, nursing home, marina and a pub.

But the plans by a firm of architects caused outrage in Bingley. Greenhill Action Group was set up to fight them and the protests were given high level support by the then Shipley MP Sir Marcus Fox and renowned international pianist John Briggs who lives locally.

Residents banded together and collected 1,000 signatures for a petition against the scheme.

They won a partial victory when planners decided that the site was suitable for only limited housing because of access problems but the application was left in abeyance.

Bert Day, senior planning advisor for Woodhall Planning and Conservation, said the application was still being pursued on behalf of his clients Calverley-based architects and town planners Webb Seeger Moorhouse.

He said: "The situation is that we have written to Bradford Council inviting them to set out to us the areas of constraint which will still apply.

"We are viewing the highways access issue - a matter of particular controversy originally - as resolvable. There may also be other things which the Council will see as problem areas.

"Things have started to move and it's certainly an interesting time. I'm not aware precisely of the terms of the constraint and it may well be some form of revision put forward."

But the news was greeted with concern by residents and Shipley MP Chris Leslie who said: "With an inadequate road network and a canal bordering the site it seems almost impossible to me how it could be developed without completely ripping to pieces the delicate and valuable character of this site.

"Such a development poses very many questions including residential amenity, wildlife and drainage which haven't yet been examined. I am going to be urging the Council to be firm in holding to the constraints on the site. I think people will be very upset that this is still on the agenda."

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