Local Plan: Councillors will plough on with Calderdale Local Plan projects despite legal challenge

A majority of Calderdale’s councillors approved the Local Plan – shaping where thousands of new homes might be built in a borough – in the spring and consultations into some of its aspects have already begun.

Councillor Howard Blagbrough (Con, Brighouse) asked at a recent council meeting whether work on the plan would be suspended following the High Court granting permission to Clifton Neighbourhood Forum to challenge the blueprint.

“The council should now suspend work on the Local Plan until the judicial review is completed – this will avoid additional and potential unnecessary spending at a time when the council is already looking to make savings to deal with the projected £5 million overspend,” he said.

But leader of the council, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said work would go on.

Coun Scullion told a meeting of full council that deputy high court Judge Karen Ridge considered the argument could be made about whether planning inspector Katie Child had adequately explained her conclusions on transport impacts when overseeing the plan.

Significantly, since receiving notice of the decision, the council had discovered what appears to have been an administrative mistake by the court resulting in the council’s summary grounds for resisting the claim not being put before Judge Ridge, she said.

Nevertheless the council was confident it would at the next stage present “strong legal arguments to defend the lawfulness of the Local Plan,” said Coun Scullion.

“The Local Plan remains the statutory development plan for Calderdale unless it is successfully quashed, it therefore continues to be the legal starting point for decision-making on planning applications.

“With an adopted plan in place, Calderdale is not subject to the vagaries of speculative development.

“This council is responding robustly to the bid to challenge the Local Plan process – the Local Plan will remain in place because it will build a better Calderdale for everyone,” she said.

Meanwhile the forum continues fundraising for the next stage of its legal challenge, hoping to raise £35,000.

A spokesperson said the group had put their argument in a calm and measured way through the examination hearings and were not a “protest” group.