Petitions signed by hundreds of campaigners will be presented to Bradford Council by villagers battling to keep their green fields.

People in Heaton have set up a website and raised £500 towards employing a planning consultant to protect land at Ashwell Farm from housing.

And they were expected to turn up in force at City Hall today to present their petitions.

The residents are among campaigners across the district in a last-ditch fight to save a handful of green areas which face development.

Inspectors at a six-month public inquiry into the district's Unitary Development Plan agreed some areas should lose their protected status, mainly because of challenges from developers.

But large areas of Green Belt remain as they were.

The Council has invited comments on the inspectors' findings and the deadline is on Monday. So far it has received about 200 - mainly from Heaton - but officers believe there may be a deluge over the weekend.

The Council says campaigners must give strong new planning reasons to have any hope of success. The Heaton protesters have won the support of MP Marsha Singh and want to take the fight to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

They have put up posters after inspectors recommended the designation for the site is changed to housing.

The campaigners say threats to the land have existed for years and there has been long-term opposition. Protester Angi Williamson said: "There have been attempts to develop the land since the 1960s. Societies in Heaton have been formed as a result of it and we will battle on."

But the Council's executive member for the environment Councillor Anne Hawkes-worth said the UDP had passed the period for objections and only comments could be considered.

Coun Hawkesworth said: "The land at Heaton wasn't picked out of the blue by the inspectors at the inquiry, it was because there was a challenge to its designation by someone who hoped to develop it. The Council opposed this strongly at the inquiry. But we have little room for manoeuvre."

The comments arising from the recommendations of the inspectors are expected to be considered by the executive committee but a decision on the revised plan will be made by the full council.