Campaigners opposing the building of 475 homes near Bingley have welcomed the coalition Government’s plans to scrap a blueprint to deliver 50,000 houses across the district.

Former Bradford Council leader Eric Pickles, now Communities and Local Government Secretary, has written to Bradford Council announcing the intention to scrap the Regional Spatial Strategy.

The Greenhill Action Group says the Government’s announcement could aid its battle against the proposed development in a field site off Sty Lane, Micklethwaite.

Mick Meares, vice-chairman of the Greenhill Action Group, said: “We think that it is good news because what they are expecting is that the locals have much more say in what goes off in local planning matters.

“So previously the concern was that local government found it was obliged to meet central government targets regardless of what the local opinion was. So what we are expecting here is that there will be much more attention put to local feeling.”

Mr Meares said the need for new housing in the Bingley area was debatable.

He said more than 70 per cent of new flats in Bingley remained empty, despite them being developed three years ago.

He said: “If there is such high demand then why aren’t people buying the houses, because even small cheap flats aren’t selling?”

The Greenhill Action Group has handed an on-line petition with 5,162 signatures to Bingley ward Councillor David Heseltine, along with 291 objection letters.

Mr Meares said the latest handover took the total of petitions and objection letters to more than 7,000.

In a letter to councils Mr Pickles says decisions on housing supply will rest with local authorities without the framework of regional numbers and plans.

Housing Minister Greg Clark will also visit the Shipley constituency to tell residents how they can fight proposed developments.

But Canon Gordon Dey, chairman of the Tong and Fulneck Valley Association, which opposes new housing between Holme Wood and Tong Village, said he hoped the Council would be able to return to the original Unitary Development Plan.

He said: “As far as we are concerned, of course the fact that Bradford is not being coerced into some expansion of housing which feels as if it’s being imposed leaves Bradford free to make its own decisions.

“From our perspective, we would therefore hope very much that the plans they were beginning to at least explore for housing in the Tong Valley will now be eliminated. Bradford would be, as it were, not being dictated to by anybody else but would be responding in a way according to their own needs.

“In many ways what it would mean is Bradford is back to square one. It’s like a return to the UDP, which Bradford had already developed. What I hope happens is Bradford would return to the original UDP.

“The UDP had no plans whatsoever for the building in areas like here. But that’s not to say there won’t be right plans for future development here.”

Shipley Tory MP Philip Davies told the House of Commons how his constituents were fighting the “inappropriate proposed developments in Micklethwaite and Menst-on”.

He said they wanted to know more detail about the Government’s new planning policy which may help them fight off those developments. New Housing Minister Mr Clark said he would be delighted to meet protesters.

He added: “I will meet them and tell them that they are now free to set community plans in accordance with their interests without any fear that those plans will be revoked by national, unelected officials.”

Mr Davies said: “I am delighted the minister has accepted my invitation to come to the constituency and see for himself the inappropriate developments that are proposed.”