CAMPAIGNERS battling against a proposed housing development are up in arms over an attempt to use a tiny street as an access route.

Planners want to create a road to 28 of the 51 homes planned off New Lane in Cleckheaton, but campaigner Graeme Raisbeck said using the suggested road would be wholly inappropriate.

Pearson Street, which is off Moorside, is a dead-end street with a handful of terraced houses.

Kirklees Council and the developers, Strata Homes, are proposing stopping Pearson Street residents from parking outside their homes and would instead create parking spots away from the houses.

They also suggested that a cluster of houses on Moorside would lose their on-street parking, so that the new access route meets visibility requirements for drivers using it.

Mr Raisbeck said: "They are proposing that these residents, who are in their 60s and 70s and one has cancer, now have remote parking away from their homes.

"These fine people have been paying for their houses all their life, and have been parking outside their homes all their life - so to suggest remote parking and Pearson Street as an access route through is ridiculous. It is like a track.

"All of a sudden a developer says they are putting a road right through. There is one pavement, no street lighting, and it has never been resurfaced by Kirklees Council. The residents themselves have been filling potholes in for at least the past 12 years.

"We expected Highways to come back with 'you're having a laugh' when this route was suggested. But they have come up with a plan for it. We are staggered that they would come up with this alternative plan."

He said the Council should stop, not help, developers from forcing people to park away from their homes.

Mr Raisbeck is part of a large group of residents opposed to plans to build 51 homes off New Lane.

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said: "The proposed development is for 51 dwellings with a new access off New lane serving 23 of them and Moorside via Pearson Street serving 28.

“With respect to Pearson Street, which is an adopted public highway, the proposal is to provide access to its junction with Moorside and increase its width. The site accesses and the internal layout are currently being assessed by Highways Development Management team."

Strata Homes failed to respond to a request from the Telegraph & Argus for a comment.