'Once green belt is gone, it's gone': Protests and fears of countryside carve up voiced as Calderdale's controversial Local Plan is voted through

Councillors were lobbied by campaigners chanting “save our green belt” as they arrived at Halifax Town Hall for a long and at times acrimonious debate.

The plan is particularly controversial in areas including Brighouse, Shelf, Hipperholme, Northowram and Greetland, where many of the almost 10,000 potential new homes might be built, including large ‘garden suburbs’ at Woodhouse and rural Thornhill, near Brighouse.

Campaigners have cited concerns including air quality and concerns over whether infrastructure from highways to GP surgeries will be adequate to cope, as well as loss of green belt.

But members voted to adopt the Local Plan by 26 votes to 23, with Labour councillors backing Cabinet’s recommendation and Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green and Independent councillors all opposed.

Coun Angie Gallagher (Lab, Elland) abstained as is traditional for the Mayor of the borough.

Proposing the plan be adopted, the council’s Deputy Leader, Coun Jane Scullion, said they were ambitious.

Calderdale needed to attract new residents to the area, with population growing slowly but an ageing one and action was needed to stop it slipping into a cycle of “demographic and economic decline,” she insisted.

Calderdale’s social housing provider had a waiting list of 7,251 people needing homes while others were living in homes that were not suitable. The borough also wanted to attract new businesses and allow existing ones to grow, she said.

Coun Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot) said people talking down the borough had consequences.

“It gives a message ‘don’t come and live here, don’t set up a business and for heaven’s sake don’t care about the homeless or people in damp, overcrowded houses.

“Let me emphasise, we are not closed.

“We are not closed to new and expanding businesses. We are not closed to good new energy-efficient housing.

“And we have definitely not closed our ears to the unheard voices of those who need housing,” she said.

The plans, which a Planning Inspector overseeing a four year long consultation process, had found “sound” subject to some modifications, would achieve these goals in a “measured and considered” way, allowing control over development on land which was privately owned, private development needed to realise affordable housing amid a good mix through legal agreements, she said.

Infrastructure considerations were a key part of the plan and not a single house would be built without being tested through the planning application process, said Coun Scullion.

Opposing the proposals, Conservative group leader Coun Steven Leigh (Con, Ryburn) criticised methodology used to produce supporting figures for the plan.

Coun Leigh said the council had become “arrogant” with no desire to hear what objectors had to say and the ruling Labour administration had not listened to them.

Much of the housing would be built in the wrong areas, affluent ones, not places which badly needed new homes, he said.

Coun Leigh was not convinced green belt land needed to be sacrificed and once gone, it was lost, he said.

Coun James Baker (Lib Dem, Warley) had a fiery exchange with council leader Tim Swift (Lab, Town), alleging that when it won a majority on the council the Labour Cabinet unilaterally agreed to increase housing numbers, deviating from a position previously supported by the two parties.

Coun Baker said green belt sites would be developed with big houses and the policy would not deliver the sort of homes needed.

“We think it will bring an oversupply of houses, in the wrong places, said Coun Baker.

Green Party councillor Martin Hey (Northowram and Shelf) said in his own ward the plan advocated building in an area which had already the most expensive and unaffordable housing, had been excluded from West Yorkshire’s mass transit plans and where many buildings and amenities had been shut down by the council and others.

“This just doesn’t make sense, and for local residents to say so isn’t necessarily nimbyism, it’s just a statement of fact,” he said.

Coun Howard Blagbrough (Con, Brighouse) said he was not against new homes but they must have adequate infrastructure, and placing of so many at Clifton was tied to economic plans for an industrial site which had failed to secure funding.

Citing TV’s The Apprentice, he said of the Cabinet recommending the Local Plan be approved, “I can almost see Lord Sugar here tonight in this room and he’d be saying ‘you’re all fired!'”

But Coun Helen Brundell (Lab, Todmorden) said new housing was needed in a borough where there were social housing waiting lists as long as that and homes to let were going within five minutes of being online.

“We simply do not have enough housing – we know people are desperate,” she said.

Coun Josh Fenton-Glynn (Lab, Calder) said local Conservatives since 2018 had not come up with an alternative Local Plan and he wanted to speak for those without homes who had not had a voice in the process.

“We can vote for jobs, we can vote for homes, we can vote for a future Calderdale can be proud of,” he said.

Coun Victoria Porritt (Lab, Elland), who has chaired the council’s Planning Committee, said often they had been forced to approve “mediocre” schemes without up-to-date policies in place.

But another Planning Committee member, Coun David Kirton (Con, Hipperholme and Lightcliffe) remained unconvinced the plan was right for Calderdale – and certainly not for his area where two large schemes were already green-lighted without improvements for the notoriously congested Hipperholme crossroads in place.

“It will be absolutely horrendous, and absolutely ridiculous,” he said.

Speaking after the decision, Greetland green belt campaigner Lyndsey Ashton, who had joined the demonstration outside the Town Hall, said every political group in Calderdale voted against the Local Plan, except for Labour.

"In the two most recent local elections, after Labour chose to increase the amount of green belt in local plan, more people in Calderdale voted for the parties that collectively opposed the Local Plan than they did for Labour.

"The people of Calderdale have not been fairly represented by the outcome of the Full Council vote. Representation is everything. Labour abused their privilege. Shame on them."