DEVELOPERS should be allowed to build on land currently in the Green Belt as soon as possible, a prominent planning consultancy has said.

Barton Willmore, which represents a number of major developers, said the district had a severe housing shortage which wouldn't be eased until Bradford Council earmarked new sites for development.

But the controversial call has alarmed campaigners fighting to protect as much of the Green Belt as possible as Bradford Council draws up its long-term planning blueprint.

The Council approved a key part of this plan - the Core Strategy - last month. This set out roughly where 42,100 homes, including around 11,000 on the Green Belt, should be built before 2030.

But Barton Willmore is concerned that it could be up to four years before specific sites are earmarked for development.

The firm represented four developers - Persimmon, Keyland, Harworth and Chartford Homes - when a Government planning inspector held a public examination of the Core Strategy in 2015.

James Hall, a partner at Barton Willmore, said: “Having attended the examination sessions for the Core Strategy on behalf of four of our major clients, we’re delighted Bradford Council has adopted the strategy.

“It’s now vitally important that Council resources are focused on the allocations plan – which will determine sites where developers can bring forward much-needed new homes to meet demand.

“The Council must look at the release of Green Belt sites to do this.

“The current indication that this process might take four years is concerning as such a delay will seriously affect delivery of housing for Bradford and the surrounding area.”

One of the areas destined to lose Green Belt land for housing is south-east Bradford, where an extension of the Holme Wood urban area is planned.

The Rev Canon Gordon Dey, chairman of the Tong and Fulneck Valley Association, said they would be “very concerned” if anyone was trying to hurry the sensitive process of redrawing the Green Belt boundaries.

He said: “We, of course remain fairly implacably against any unnecessary invasion of the Green Belt. The problem for us is that it would seem there are some developers - I don’t know whether these are some of them - who are not as committed to the Green Belt as we believe should be the case.”

He said developers’ apparent keenness to build on green fields reflected a national issue, that housebuilders were not being given enough incentives to redevelop brownfield land.

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, portfolio holder for regeneration, transport and planning, said no timetable had yet been set for the land allocation process.

He said: “Obviously it takes time to do the site allocations properly.

“Now we have the Core Strategy, we are working on a detailed timetable for the site allocation.

“Much of this timetable is dictated by Government guidelines. No completion date has therefore been announced yet.

“The key thing is that we now have a Core Strategy in place which will help protect us from unwanted and speculative development.”