Campaigners admit defeat in Baildon business park scheme (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

It's really quite sad that the Council have chosen to ignore the thoughts of the people in the area. There are serious concerns about the site being contaminated from the old chemical works that stood there, and possible disturbance of this resulting in the surrounding area being affected. And this is not to mention the potential for Otley Road, already an overly busy route, to become even more congested.

And this will take place despite there being large areas of brown field sites in & around the Shipley area, most of which are better connected to the road & public transport network (the area around Buck Lane is currently served by 1 hourly & two infrequent bus routes, and one half hourly train service around 5-10 mins away).

But worst still is that there are no confirmed occupants of the proposed development, with the developers Watson Batty Ltd listing Bradford Council as the customers. So to press there are no jobs to be created there, and as things stand a green field site will simply be turned into a brown field site (at a cost of up to £25M of our money). Bradford Council seem to be obsessed with creating holes all over the district for some reason, for an good example of that see the former Forster Square. Once again our glorious Councillors & the planning department have failed to get things right. Why hasn't all the effort they have put into this site on the fringes of the city been better used to develop the decaying centres of Bradford & Shipley?

Bantamzen wrote:
It's really quite sad that the Council have chosen to ignore the thoughts of the people in the area. There are serious concerns about the site being contaminated from the old chemical works that stood there, and possible disturbance of this resulting in the surrounding area being affected. And this is not to mention the potential for Otley Road, already an overly busy route, to become even more congested.

And this will take place despite there being large areas of brown field sites in & around the Shipley area, most of which are better connected to the road & public transport network (the area around Buck Lane is currently served by 1 hourly & two infrequent bus routes, and one half hourly train service around 5-10 mins away).

But worst still is that there are no confirmed occupants of the proposed development, with the developers Watson Batty Ltd listing Bradford Council as the customers. So to press there are no jobs to be created there, and as things stand a green field site will simply be turned into a brown field site (at a cost of up to £25M of our money). Bradford Council seem to be obsessed with creating holes all over the district for some reason, for an good example of that see the former Forster Square. Once again our glorious Councillors & the planning department have failed to get things right. Why hasn't all the effort they have put into this site on the fringes of the city been better used to develop the decaying centres of Bradford & Shipley?

If there are no tenants then why are they building?

Yawn, campaigning for the sake of campaigning. Some people are stuck in the past and do not like change.

Such ignorance as that shown by "beardedclam" simply demonstrates why governments, and in this case the local Council, can simply steamroller over the democratic process at will. These people were not "campaigning for the sake of campaigning" as I'm sure they must have much better things to do with their time.
The Buck Lane fiasco has been a great demonstration of how the Council can and do totally ignore the strength of feeling in the community about the "management" of the environment in which we all live. If he or she got off their backside and supported such people as Braid then Councils such as the ghastly one we have in Bradford would never survive.
For all the opportunities which the Council claim to have provided for objections they still completely ignore the democratic process. They demonstrate time and again their utter incompetence in running this city, and put Bradford to shame in comparison with other cities. The prosperity of Leeds and other cities has not been achieved through the same appalling inefficiency as that shown in Bradford for many years.

FAO webshow - Possibly the same reason the council leveled Forster Square any to find no-one wanted to develop it

FAO beardedclam - Terrible isn't it? Almost as bad as people posting useless comments for the sake of it.....

Sense prevails.

It’s a bad day for Bradford and a bad day for democracy. It just shows that the Council hold all the cards and can ride roughshod over its citizens. From Westfield on down they can force through their pet projects and let the rest of us go hang.

The Council has never even bothered to explain why they are developing Buck Lane except to say that it’s been in the plan since the 1980s (!) and companies need to settle on green fields.

Who are these companies who are too snooty to put their tin sheds on brownfields? Bradford needs community minded businesses not arrogant ones who think they are better than everybody else. But pride comes before a fall; just wait till they have to deal with the traffic on Otley Road. That’ll wipe the snigger of their faces.

As a Baildoner I have to say that I don't have a problem with development on this site and hope that it is a success... I do accept the counter-argument that we should develop brownfield sites first and it would be nice to see the brownfield sites near Tesco and Lower Holme Mill developed soon, but BRAID isn't speaking for all Baildoners.

we'recitynotbradford wrote:
As a Baildoner I have to say that I don't have a problem with development on this site and hope that it is a success... I do accept the counter-argument that we should develop brownfield sites first and it would be nice to see the brownfield sites near Tesco and Lower Holme Mill developed soon, but BRAID isn't speaking for all Baildoners.

I signed the petition. BRAiD spoke for me and everybidy I know. As far as I could see the only people in favour were motivated by narrow party political allegance.

But here we go again. Another disaster in the making. Why can’t Regeneration get anything right? Instead of fighting dereliction they turn good agricultural land into brownfields.

Just like the other “High Tech Science Parks” the Council has promoted, this site will never be fully occupied. It’s a terrible pointless waste. Let’s hope that in a couple of years, when the Council gets round to doing an audit, that somebody’s head will roll.

To any company thinking of moving onto the site I say take the advice and check out present and future traffic. Otley Road is a nightmare during the rush hours and the Council are well known for underestimating traffic volumes to push their schemes through.

Izzy Eckerslike wrote:
Such ignorance as that shown by "beardedclam" simply demonstrates why governments, and in this case the local Council, can simply steamroller over the democratic process at will. These people were not "campaigning for the sake of campaigning" as I'm sure they must have much better things to do with their time.
The Buck Lane fiasco has been a great demonstration of how the Council can and do totally ignore the strength of feeling in the community about the "management" of the environment in which we all live. If he or she got off their backside and supported such people as Braid then Councils such as the ghastly one we have in Bradford would never survive.
For all the opportunities which the Council claim to have provided for objections they still completely ignore the democratic process. They demonstrate time and again their utter incompetence in running this city, and put Bradford to shame in comparison with other cities. The prosperity of Leeds and other cities has not been achieved through the same appalling inefficiency as that shown in Bradford for many years.

Prosperity of Leeds has been mainly down to public sector job creation schemes by national Govt and little to do with either the local council or the private sector.

we'recitynotbradford wrote:
As a Baildoner I have to say that I don't have a problem with development on this site and hope that it is a success... I do accept the counter-argument that we should develop brownfield sites first and it would be nice to see the brownfield sites near Tesco and Lower Holme Mill developed soon, but BRAID isn't speaking for all Baildoners.

You may be in favour of the scheme now, but this viewpoint may change in the future. Depending on what actually ends up being built (if anything), it could severely affect traffics flows around the village. If Otley Road gets even more congested, then yet more traffic coming from Hollins Hill might get tempted into trying to go via Station Road / Baildon Road. And then if that gets bad, more traffic from Menston / Burley / Ilkley might be tempted to short cut via Hawksworth & Baildon village.

I'm sure as a Baildon resident you must already be aware of the ever growing problem with traffic in the area, and how increasingly difficult it is get get in & our of the village these days. And if you aren't aware, ask one of the local taxi drivers from the village what they think (& they will tell you believe me).

Also there is unlikely to be much financial gain for the area from anyone working at the development. Given that access is ironically from Guiseley than it is from Shipley at peak times, any workforce is as likely to come from the North West Leeds area as it is from Bradford. And the site is really too far away from most of Baildon's / Shipley's retail, the usual windfall of workers buying lunches, bits of shopping etc normally associated with new developments isn't going to happen here. More likely they will rely on site specific facilities, or simply bring in what they need from home.

It's really quite difficult to see what benefits there are from using this site, rather than one of the brown field sites closer towards Shipley. I would be interested as to why you think there might be.

Not sure of the logic of the campaigners here.

They seem to be saying the development should occur nearer to the city centre instead of their backyard.

But if the development was built in the city centre this would attract more traffic in what is already the the most congested part of the district - not only that, much of the extra traffic would be going through Baildon anyway!

You only need to go 400 yards nearer to Shipley to see the Acorn Industrial Park - this currently has vacant premises so I don't really see where the demand is for more.

webess wrote:
Not sure of the logic of the campaigners here.

They seem to be saying the development should occur nearer to the city centre instead of their backyard.

But if the development was built in the city centre this would attract more traffic in what is already the the most congested part of the district - not only that, much of the extra traffic would be going through Baildon anyway!

Any developments closer to Shipley will offer potential workers better & easier access to the sites, as well as being much closer to a wider variety of public transport services. Much of the the current congestion that is being discussed occurs at the junction of Otley Road & Baildon Road. Developements closer into Shipley would be easier to manage traffic wise as there are a number of routes out of Shipley, whereas the current site the only way in & out of the area is Otley Road.

Good news. The sooner people realise that construction is key to the economy recovering the better.

Truffle shuffle wrote:
Good news. The sooner people realise that construction is key to the economy recovering the better.

So why not focus on the Westfield site, which will bring economic benefits to the area rather than develop a site that has no firm interests in occupation? Building just for the sake of it is folly, there has to be a product at the end.

Truffle shuffle wrote:
Good news. The sooner people realise that construction is key to the economy recovering the better.

Construction will help the economy, but there is no reason why it has to be on green field sites.

There is no queue of occupants for Buck Lane. If it ever fills up, it will be a long, long, process and unlikely to give local construction much of a boost.

The Council have perpetrated another disaster.

Construction is great for regeneration - but this is the WRONG site - If the old mohair site and the ones next to tesco and the BMW Allan Jefferies garage were full then fair enough, but they are not....