Campaigners are stepping up their battle to stop a former reservoir site in Baildon being turned into a housing estate after news of a bid by developers to build there.

Members of the West Lane Action Group are calling on Bradford Council to throw out the plans or put them on hold until a decision on proposals to leave the former Baildon Bank Reservoir site undeveloped until 2009 has been taken.

Bradford's current Unitary Development Plan (UDP) designates the land for housing. But the new draft UDP - a planning blueprint outlining proposals for development in the district over the next 15 years and expected to be adopted in 2004 - recommends delaying the development of the 2.8 hectare site for eight years.

Now Cala Homes (Yorkshire) Ltd and Keyland Developments are seeking outline planning permission for a residential development there.

Action group members have fought a long-running campaign to protect the Yorkshire Water-owned site off West Lane, fearing dozens of homes could be built there which would affect their quality of life, adding to traffic congestion and damaging the balance between developed land and the Green Belt.

Spokesman Trevor Hallatt, whose home in Foxhill overlooks the site, said: "We want to support the Council's draft opinion that any development on this site should be put on hold for the next eight or nine years as it's not needed to meet the district's current housing needs. There's just no infrastructure to get people in and out of Baildon. Our roads are already heavily congested and if you add to that with this development it'll just make the traffic problems even worse.

"They talk about it being a brown field site but we would say you just can't compare a reservoir to a former factory or hospital site.''

Mr Hallatt said they were distributing hundreds of leaflets to local residents calling on them to oppose the plans and write letters to the Council's Shipley area planning panel.

Councillor Grahame Thornton (Lib Dem, Baildon) said: "Whether the planning panel turns down the application or delays determining it, the applicant may appeal and that would test the Council's proposal to delay the development of this site to phase two of the draft UDP in about 2009.''

In a letter to the Council Graham Connell, of DTZ Pieda Consulting, agent for the applicants, said the development brief confirmed the site as a brown field one and addressed issues of design, layout, housing density and parking.

Andy Haigh, the Council's group planning manager, said: "The Council has a legal duty to deal with planning applications as soon as possible and can't delay their consideration while the UDP is under review. People can make comments or objections as normal and these will be fully considered by members at a future planning committee meeting.''