VILLAGERS in Mirfield have threatened to mount a legal challenge over a disputed patch of grass verge earmarked by planners to allow access to a controversial housing site.

Developers want to build 48 houses on a parcel of farmland off Northorpe Lane.

To do they must demolish a detached home to create access to the land-locked site.

That access will be aided by creating a lay-by on grassed land opposite the site.

Kirklees Council says the verge forms part of the highway.

Objectors say it is owned by nearby Northorpe Hall, a children’s mental health charity.

Campaigners' battle against Mirfield homes plan ends

Members of the council’s Strategic Planning Committee this week voted 5-2 to approve the outline plan for the homes.

Residents from the campaign group Save Northorpe said the council had failed to acknowledge safety concerns around the narrow country lane.

They argued that safe access to the development could not be achieved without the planned lay-by but that the authority had failed to prove conclusively that the grassed area adjacent to Northorpe Hall was highway land.

They said Land Registry records showed the grassy area was owned by Northorpe Hall Trust and that the land was not on the council’s own map.

One objector stated: “If this application is approved by this committee then Kirklees Council should expect a court challenge.”

Another added: “Most egregiously the grass area is not recorded as highway on the council’s own statutory definitive highways map.

“The council will have simply no answer to that in any court case.”

The council was accused of failing to show “historical records” on ownership to residents leading them to conclude that “they do not exist”.

The council was accused of not following process, of failing to be transparent and of being “undemocratic”.

Other objections raised by legal observers acting for residents were said to have been ignored or had been “lost” within the wider report presented to the planning committee.

That report was slammed as “not fit for purpose”. One councillor dismissed the plan as “half-baked” and said it should be turned down.

Legal officers for the council said the authority considered the key grassed area to be part of the highway and that it would impose a “Grampian condition”.

That is a pre-commencement condition that says until the access arrangements are in place the development can’t begin.

Speaking after the meeting Cheryl Tyler, chairman of Save Mirfield, said: “Although the approval is for access, the suggested  scale of development is far too large to be accommodated on that narrow lane.

“There are vulnerable children and young adults attending Northorpe Hall on a regular basis and the extra traffic this will add also adds to the risk to them.

“There is also a question of the true ownership of the land opposite that the council wants to take to form a lay-by.”

Clr Andrew Pinnock (Lib Dem, Cleckheaton) moved the application for approval.

He was supported by Carole Pattison (Lab, Greenhead),  Will Simpson (Lab, Denby Dale), Mohan Sokhal (Lab, Greenhead) and committee chairman Steve Hall (Lab, Heckmondwike).

Clr Donna Bellamy (Con, Colne Valley) and Clr Donald Firth (Con, Holme Valley South) voted against the plan.