HOPES that new Government proposals could save Green Belt land from development appear to have been dashed.

Last month, the Government began consulting on plans to reintroduce a national formula to set housing targets, which would see the number of new homes planned for Bradford cut by a third.

The news was welcomed by green space campaigners who had been fighting a Bradford Council plan approved earlier this year for 42,100 new homes across the district by 2030, including around 11,000 on land which is currently in the Green Belt.

A campaign group in the Tong Valley, one of the Green Belt areas earmarked for new homes, had called on Bradford Council to pause its Local Plan and await the outcome of this Government review.

But in a letter to the Tong and Fulneck Valley Association, Bradford Council’s chief executive Kersten England said such a delay “isn’t appropriate”.

In the letter she says that while the Government’s proposed formula would indeed give Bradford a lower housing target than the Council’s own plan, the consultation says local councils would still be free to set higher targets “if justified and related to economic growth aspirations”, or follow a different methodology entirely.

She says that in the current consultation, the Government had also put forward proposals which would allow local authorities which had adopted a plan within the last five years to continue to use the existing housing targets within it.

Ms England's letter says there would "therefore be no automatic requirement for the Council to review its housing need figures", but she said the authority would carefully consider the Government's final proposals before deciding how to proceed.

She adds: “Given that the consultation includes multiple options which may change substantially, it is far too soon to draw any conclusions as to what the specific implications for Bradford might be.

“It isn’t appropriate to delay work on the Local Plan until next spring. This would be counter to Government policy and damaging to the economy of the district and the imperative to meet people’s need for new homes.”

Gordon Dey, chairman of the Tong and Fulneck Valley Association, said they had been grateful for Ms England’s detailed response but disappointed by its content.

He said: “It would of course be reprehensible in the extreme if early loss of Green Belt protected land for new housing were later found to be an unnecessary and inappropriate intrusion into valuable countryside that currently adds to the beauty and value of Bradford and its place in West Yorkshire.”

Canon Dey called on planners to “think outside the box” and find ways of developing Bradford’s economy while saving its countryside.

He said: “We have got so many derelict areas and buildings that are no longer able to be in use. It must be the capital of the ‘To Let’ sign.

“Somebody has got to think outside the box a bit, at the way the city can be, and reimagine the options within rather than ever looking to grow outside of it.”