Draft plans for major housing development in East Morton will “change the character of the area”, the village society has warned.

Bradford Council has identified sites for up to 213 houses in the village as part of its Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA).

Up to 170 of those are earmarked for untouched green belt sites.

Open fields and a farmstead on a stretch of green belt land at Morton Lane, which separates East Morton from Crossflatts, has been identified as suitable for 48 homes and a further 71 homes have been proposed for fields off Street Lane.

Elsewhere, woodland at Morton Hall has been identified for a possible 50 homes and a field in Dimples Lane could also be used for an unspecified number of houses.

David Miller, chairman of Morton Village Society, said: “They must be joking to suggest putting more than 200 houses in East Morton. That number would very much change the character of the area. We will fight the proposals all the way.

“Morton Hall is in the middle of a large wood. I can’t believe they would want to fell all those trees. We will look in to putting tree preservation orders on every single one of them straight away.

“This is just destroying the neighbourhood as fast as possible. There are plenty of other places they could build.”

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