By John Baron
Councillors will once again debate plans for ‘affordable’ housing at the Airedale Mills site in Rodley next Thursday afternoon.
Full planning permission for 67 houses on the site, off Moss Bridge Lane, was approved last June, despite concerns in the community.
The planning permission included a commitment by the developer for 15% of the properties to be classed as affordable housing. Now, applicant Rodley Ltd has applied to alter that commitment to give them the option of a developer building a 100% affordable/rented housing scheme.
Councillors sitting on the plans south and west panel will meet at the Civic Hall next Thursday afternoon to discuss the variation of original planning permission.
Rodley Nature Reserve have commented on the application, saying it is important that the development is owned and operated by a single entity with adequate resources to guarantee, in perpetuity, bridge operation and therefore access to the site. Reliability issues with the operation of the newly-installed swing bridge to the site have led to much debate in the community.
WLD has reported extensively on this ongoing planning saga over the years. Last August we reported a social housing provider was set to take on the site.
Council documents for next Thursday’s plans panel can be read in full here.
What a saga this is. Last I heard they didn’t actually have a developer to actually develop this site, also they’d applied to remove some of the planning restrictions referring to the amount of rental properties? One thing you can guarantee, is that even if ‘affordable’ houses are promised, what actually gets built will have very few of them.