A Leeds city councillor has spoken out against a decision to build an industrial estate on a flood plain in Keighley, claiming people in Leeds could suffer.

Bradford Council voted this week to approve the plans for an industrial park off Royd Ings Avenue, next to the River Aire, despite concerns from the Environment Agency it could create a higher risk of floods further down the river in Shipley and Bingley.

The decision to build on the flood plain was made just hours before Leeds City Council’s development plan panel discussed plans for a £112m scheme to reduce the risk of flooding further down the River Aire.

Leeds councillor Barry Anderson (Con), who sits on the panel, said he felt the decision was unfair on Leeds.

He said: “We have a duty of cooperation – we should be working together and we should not be making decisions without communicating with each other.

“If people get it wrong in Bradford, it’s likely to be Leeds people that suffer, so yes, I do have concerns.

“We should cooperate much more – at the moment it seems to be putting our fingers in our ears and seeing what happens.

“Has Leeds been consulted by Bradford on this? If they were, they should have raised objections.”

Decision-makers in Bradford who voted to approve the plans, argued the benefits of a multi million pound investment and hundreds of new jobs in Keighley outweighed the risks created by building on a flood plain.

A spokesman for Bradford Council said: “The duty to co-operate between Local Planning Authorities such as Leeds and Bradford relates to large, strategic cross boundary issues such as Local Plans rather than individual planning applications and of course we fully comply with our duty to co-operate on the relevant issues.

“On this application members of the Regulatory and Appeals Committee made a decision to approve it after considering the evidence before them, including the objections from the Environment Agency. This will now go to the Secretary of State to decide whether the planning application should be approved or called in for him to make the final decision. If planning permission is granted, the Environment Agency will need to approve an environmental permit before the development can commence.”