The fight to stop hundreds of new homes being built in Silsden has gone to the United Nations.

Keith Norris - a parish councillor, Silsden Town Action Group member and local environmentalist - has written to the commissioner of sustainable development in New York.

Mr Norris says plans to build new homes in the town break Agenda 21, a global agreement to help protect the environment which local and central governments signed up for in 1991.

Up to 1,500 new homes could be built on green belt land around the town under the Unitary Development Plan, the land-use blueprint adopted by Bradford council.

People in the town have been fighting against the threatened development for several years.

Agenda 21 encourages people to 'think globally and act locally' in order to protect the environment.

"The proposed development for Silsden goes against the whole idea of Agenda 21," says Mr Norris. "It will increase the use of the motor car and the number of commuters. Resources such as water will also be hit if they build on areas such as the washlands."

He says sustainable development under Agenda 21 should encourage people to live and work in the same area. "But we already have people transported into and people commuting from the town to their work," he says.

Now he wants the UN to step in to tell the Government it is not acting in accordance with the agreement.

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