A key strategic document setting out an approach to development in the district for the next 20 years is “impenetrable” and “filled with planning mumbo jumbo”, a prominent councillor claims.

Councillor Simon Cooke (Con, Bingley Rural), his party’s spokesman for regeneration and the economy, said the development report, which will become part of Bradford Council’s Local Development Framework (LDF), contained too much jargon and was impossible for most people to understand.

The document focuses on housing and employment land, as well as infrastructure, and sets out proposals for where a target of 45,500 new homes could be built across the district by 2028.

Coun Cooke said the core plan would have a big impact on people’s lives and he urged district residents to contact their ward representatives or the Council directly to ask exactly what it would mean for them.

He said: “We have just had two big planning applications being dealt with at Sty Lane near Bingley and in Menston, both on the principal that the Council designated those sites for housing years ago without anyone noticing until the developers turned up. We are doing the same again."

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