Many of you will know about Calderdale Council’s Local Plan. This is a strategy which allocates 15,000 houses for development across Calderdale.
A huge 56% of the new housing allocation is proposed in the Brighouse and Elland areas. This represents substantial housing growth in an incredibly concentrated area, and I have long argued for highway, school, and GP surgery investment to ease the impact of this substantial growth.
Indeed, many residents echo this point. Common sense suggests that the consequences of housing growth, such as more cars and service users, should be remedied by infrastructure and public service investment.
The Local Plan is currently being reviewed by the Planning Inspector in the Stage 2 Hearings. After these Hearings, the Inspector will recommend Calderdale Council to either:
- Adopt the Plan as it is;
- Adopt the Plan with amendments; or
- Withdraw the Plan because it is not sound and cannot be made sound even with changes.
Having participated in these Hearings, there are clearly some major holes in the Local Plan that the Council must fix.
This does however present problems for the Council. The Council have submitted many technical documents after a deadline which was set by the Inspector. The Hearing Statement, compiled on behalf of the Clifton Village Neighbourhood Forum (‘CVNF’), has drawn the Inspector’s attention to Uttlesford’s Local Plan. This Local Plan was withdrawn following a recommendation by the Inspector, because the Council were incorrectly using the examination process to carry out major changes to the plan or to complete the preparation of its evidence base. Essentially, Local Plans should be submitted to the Inspector when they are substantially completed, and councils should not use Inspector Hearings to make significant changes to their Local Plans. The CVNF go on to say, “There are clear parallels between Uttlesford and Calderdale in attempts to belatedly and retrospectively justify, and provide essential evidence for, a flawed strategy”.
In the Hearings, concerns were expressed about infrastructure. The Council released an ‘Infrastructure Delivery Plan’ (‘IDP’) in 2019. This document contained a breakdown of transport interventions. The Council have recently released a 2020 version of the IDP, and this document details the ‘essential’ works only.
However, strangely, the 2019 IDP proposed a new road to improve connectivity between the A644 and A641. This was a £14.5 million planned transport intervention, and it was ranked as priority 13. The aimed completion date was 2025. The 2020 IDP removes this new road, which was intended to “resolve the vast majority of capacity issues in the west of the Brighouse town centre and close to the southern end of the Thornhill’s Garden Suburb site”.
It is bizarre that the Council has not classified this new road as a ‘essential’ work. The A641-A644 intervention was a key improvement which underpinned the deliverability of the proposed houses in the Brighouse area. This therefore undermines the Garden Suburb Model, which the Local Plan is predicated upon. This is just one of many examples where the Council are struggling to demonstrate the adequacy of their infrastructure plans.
Regarding the wider issue of finance and education, it is also apparent that the Council are proposing to borrow large amounts of money to bolster their infrastructure investments. Their infrastructure improvements are incredibly important. They relate not only to our highways, but also the building of schools to educate our children, and provide additional healthcare services, as well as improving essential utilities. I am therefore unsettled that the Council are placing such a high reliance on borrowing money, especially when the Council have had no guarantee that the money would be loaned. It is also incredulous that the Council are relying on borrowing at a time when they are having to cut public services.
The issue of air quality was also raised. It was reported in the Halifax Courier that the Inspector had concerns about air quality because the Council are relying on two proxy assessments for the A629 highway and Clifton. These proxy assessments look at air quality in detail, rather than a full assessment on the affect Calderdale’s whole growth has on air quality across Calderdale.
There is a plethora of community groups, planning consultants and legal representatives that are opposing this plan, and the Council are clearly under pressure to justify their own strategy.
The Council's 15-year Local Housing Plan will affect generations to come and will change our georgraphical landscape forever. We need houses, of course we do. But they need to be built in the right places and supported by essential infrastructure. Anything less will be a disaster for our valley.
The final two weeks of the Planning Inspector Hearings are due to take place in November and, together with local residents and businesses, I shall continue to raise concerns and hightlight flaws in the Plan to ensure we have a housing strategy that Calderdale residents need and deserve.