MEMBERS of a planning committee have demanded more information about plans to build up to 190 homes on land next to and within a known flooding area.

The committee said it needed to know far more about the risk of these homes flooding or causing floods elsewhere, in the wake of the devastation seen in the district on Boxing Day.

Applicant Countryside Properties UK had applied for outline consent to build the homes on greenfield land at Belton Road, Silsden.

A small part of the site was within an area known to be a flood risk, but planning officers had recommended the scheme for approval, saying the risk could be overcome by either not building on this part of the land, or building homes at a raised level.

Steve Hughes, for Countryside Properties, said they had taken the flooding matter "very seriously".

He said while the firm's flood risk assessment had been written before the Boxing Day floods, a representative had been up to the site during the floods to monitor how it had been affected and he understood that "the site didn't actually flood".

He said the scheme would bring considerable investment to the area and would contain 20 per cent affordable housing.

One member of the regulatory and appeals committee, Councillor Michael Ellis (Con, Bingley Rural), said while he liked many elements of the scheme, he "would be failing in my duty to the people of Silsden, Riddlesden and Cottingley and so on to accept this flood risk assessment".

He asked for the matter to be deferred, to allow the applicant to submit a fuller flood risk assessment, taking in the Boxing Day floods, as well as giving time for the authorities to investigate what led to the floods and what protection measures to put in place.

Councillor Doreen Lee (Lab, Keighley East) described being up to her waist in flood water while helping residents during the Boxing Day floods.

She said: "I am amazed that we haven't learned the lesson. I promised the people of Stockbridge we would."

The matter was deferred indefinitely to allow more information on the flood risk to be gathered.