Bradford Council has revealed it has made “changes” to its procedures in the wake of a planning “farce” surrounding applications for nearly 300 new homes.

Barra Mac Ruairi, the Council’s strategic director for regeneration and culture, re-iterated an apology to more than 200 people who attended an adjourned planning meeting in Menston last week.

The Shipley area planning panel was postponed after a couple of minutes when planners revealed the Council had not received a formal response from the Environment Agency (EA) on schemes put forward by developers Barratt Homes to build 174 homes on Derry Hill and Taylor Wimpey to construct 125 houses on Bingley Road in the village.

But an official report, which had been written for a previous meeting in July, which was also postponed, said the EA had been consulted on both applications by the Council. Mr Mac Ruairi has confirmed it was an error and changes have been made to prevent it happening again.

He said: “We are very sorry for the inconvenience and upset experienced by the people who attended the Shipley area planning panel meeting in Menston, which had to be adjourned.

“We have made changes to our systems following our mistake in not formally consulting the EA.

“The EA commented on the proposed schemes at the pre-application stage. It indicated it had no objection in principle, subject to the conditions related to cover flood risk and protection of groundwater as specified in the reports.

“This was not the formal response to formal consultation, however, which was needed for the Shipley area planning panel meeting.”

However, a statement from the EA confirmed it had only spoken to a consultant about the applications before they were submitted and had never spoken to the council about them prior to Friday, September 23.

Mr Mac Ruairi later confirmed the Council had only been copied into correspondence between the EA and applicants and used the information in the report in July.

Councillor Glen Miller, the Conservative group leader, called the postponed meeting a “farce” and has written to the council’s chief executive, Tony Reeves, asking for an investigation.

Mr Mac Ruairi said Mr Reeves was looking into the matter.