A PLOT of green space on a housing estate has been withdrawn from an auction after protests from residents and politicians.

The Bradford Council-owned land off Parkway, West Bowling, was due to go under the hammer on February 23 with a £100,000 price tag after being deemed “surplus to requirements”.

But the Council has now delayed the sell-off to give residents time to come up with a new use for it.

In 2014 councillors refused the authority’s own planning application to allow developers to build 45 homes on the site, saying it was an important green space.

The land was put up for auction later that year, but withdrawn after concerns it could be snapped up by developers.

Now the second attempt to sell the land has been put on ice in the face of protesters who included Bradford East MP Imran Hussain.

The Council has given people until the summer to come up with a plan for the land’s future.

Nazreen Khan, chair of Bradford Trident Community Council, said the issue was now in the hands of the community and a meeting will be held between Trident, councillors and residents to decide the way forward.

She said: “We were told it will still go for auction in the future if a business plan doesn’t come forward. It is now up to the local community and councillors to come up with one.”

Mr Hussain said: “Rather than seeing another housing development being built on green space in Parkside, we need a community development that makes effective use of the space and is able to deliver benefits, maintaining the fields and providing activity equipment for children to play.

“I’m grateful that Bradford Council has listened to residents who were extremely concerned about the future of the land, and that they have called a temporary halt to the auction of the land until June, by which time the local community working group will have delivered an action plan to use the land for the benefit of residents.”

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, executive for regeneration and planning, said: “We appreciate the strength of feeling in the community over this issue.

“Therefore I was happy to ask officers to delay the auction for a few months to give them some time to see if they could come up with a viable alternative solution.”

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