A Government minister yesterday told campaigners the power to stop hundreds of houses being built in Bingley and Menston was in their own hands.

Greg Clark, minister for decentralisation at the department of communities and local government, urged more than 200 villagers to become the first community in the country to take advantage of proposed new planning rules to stop the 300 homes being constructed.

Mr Clark was speaking after spending the day in West Yorkshire to hear concerns about plans to build more than 750 new homes on sites next to the Leeds-Liverpool Canal in Sty Lane, Micklethwaite, Bingley and at Derry Hill and Bingley Road in Menston.

He had been invited to the area by Shipley MP Philip Davies to see for himself the strength of local opposition to the plans.

After hearing villagers offer their opinions on why the new homes should not be built in Menston, he told them to force the issue with Bradford Council.

He said although a new bill enabling communities to take the ultimate decisions on local plans could take up to a year to be forced through parliament, recent changes brought in by the Government mean the Council have the immediate power to abandon old regional strategies.

Mr Clark said the community could lobby the Council to turn down the proposals and then be ready with their own local plan when the new bill comes into force.

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be the first out of the starting blocks for that,” he said.

“With the community spirit here, I think what would be fantastic, perhaps through Philip Davies, is if you could sit down as a community and put in place your community plan.

“The Council might even co-operate with this and say ‘we’ll go along with what the community decides here’. And if you want to do that, you could be one of the first communities in Britain to be genuinely setting your own planning system.”

Mr Davies said the minister could not fail to see the strength of opposition to all the housing plans.

“The minister is in absolutely no doubt to the strength of feeling from people both in Micklethwaite and in Menston about these developments and that is why I asked him to come to visit,” he said.

Terry Brown, chairman of Greenhill Action Group (GAG) which is campaigning against the Micklethwaite proposal, said: “We were delighted to welcome the minister to the area, and he seemed impressed with what we are doing to fight this development.”

Philip Moore, of the Menston Action Group (MAG) said: “It’s really very encouraging to see the number of people that have turned up to show their support and opposition to these plans.”