By Jill Stocks
Horsforth’s town and city councillors have expressed after a developer appealed against the refusal of housing plans on land next to Wood Lane.
The most recent application was submitted last May and subsequently refused by Leeds City Council in July. An appeal against refusal was recently submitted to an independent planning inspector for consideration.
The application is for nine dwellings and access at land near Wood Lane and Cragg Hill Farm. The land has not been used since 1978 when it was a “council waste tip in a former quarry”.
Horsforth town councillors released a detailed statement regarding their concerns with the application and subsequent appeal: “This land lies within the boundaries of the Town Council and therefore falls within the remit of our Neighbourhood Plan.
“We are against the proposals put forward by the applicant. We support the planning refusal put forward by Leeds City Council.
“We believe this appeal should be framed in the context of the application to construct nine dwellings only, and not the previously approved sports hall (which the Town Council considers an aberration of the planning process).
“We are concerned about the suitability of Wood Lane to handle the additional traffic generated by the development. We believe that the proposed access road is unfit for purpose. Not only is the lane of insufficient width, it is not suitable for this volume of traffic. We believe the additional risk to the houses on Craggwood Road (due to the sheer drop below the wall) is unacceptable.
“In addition we are concerned that the development is contrary to the made Horsforth Neighbourhood Plan.
“The proposed development lies within the Cragg hill and Woodside Conservation Area. Policy BE1 of the adopted Neighbourhood Plan states that future proposals respect the importance of green space in the character area. The plan also requires that mid distance views (including along Wood Lane) be respected.
“Given this development would occupy a key green space, and would be visible in these key views, we must object to this development on this principle as there would be significant harm to the character and conservation area which would be outweighed by the benefit of any additional housing.
“The proposal also runs counter to policy H6 of the plan – the housing as currently described is unlikely to be suitable for the elderly or for assisted living, nor are they likely to be starter homes for young people. We must therefore object on this principle.
“The policy also does not compliment policy TT3 of the plan – the development would obstruct several non-definitive footpaths that run across the land, without securing a commitment to creating protected public rights of way. Wood Lane is also a public bridleway and the increase in traffic along this public right of way would bring users into conflict. We must therefore object on this principle.
“We trust that the adopted Neighbourhood Plan will be used in the decision making by the inspector.”
Cllr Ray Jones (Lan, Horsforth) expressed the views of Horsforth’s city councillors on the matter. He said: “The Horsforth ward city councillors fully support the position of the Town Council and have also made written representations against the appeal. In our view the development is wholly unsuitable.”
Town planner Jennifer Hubbard is the agent acting on behalf of the applicant, Mr Machell. She said: “I think the thing we’re most concerned about is that there hasn’t been any engagement with Leeds City Council at all.
“We resubmitted the proposals because we weren’t entirely sure they’d been completely understood by anybody really and particularly the proposals to make available a large part of the site for public open space.
“We had no reaction at all from the City Council or the Town Council or any local organisations. We had to proceed [on the basis] that nobody wanted the land to become public open space. We can’t do anymore than say come and talk to us and nobody has.”
Ms Hubbard went on to discuss the issue of footpaths across the land.
“The council believed that the public footpaths had been created over time across the site through usage,” she added.
“Mr Machell has documentary evidence of making it clear to the public that it was private land and that they were trespassing so the council haven’t sought to confirm their view by trying to put these routes on their register of public footpaths. But again as part of the proposals we said that we would provide a public route across the land that’s not going to be developed, but nobody has responded to that either.”
Ms Hubbard added that there was also an issue with access to public consultation comments.
“Leeds City Council don’t put public consultation advice on the public access website. We asked for copies of public comments so that we could see if anyone was interested in the land becoming open space.
“We had to submit a freedom of information request. By the time we got the papers the application had been refused and some of the comments made were based on a misunderstanding of the proposals which is why we put the application back in again.
“The main thing is the landowner has had to go through having the application submitted twice. He’s extremely disappointed that having made proposals to have more than half of the land given over to public use with footpaths and lots of extra planting, not a single person has commented or engaged with us to discuss it. It’s disappointing more than anything else.”
The appeal refusal currently sits with the planning inspectorate in Bristol.
Comments are invited on the application before 12 March. The average decision time for appeals is 30 weeks, meaning a decision could be reached by November.
Background
Previous applications relating to the land go back to 1990.
An application from June 2023, almost identical to the current application, was refused the following month but no appeal was submitted.
An application for a sports hall on the land was submitted in 1989 and subsequently granted on appeal in 1992.