National nature watchdogs say Bradford City football club must carry out a survey on the effect of a £1.5 million training complex on owls and greater crested newts.

The instruction from English Nature comes as residents prepare to fight a fresh battle with the Bantams over plans for training facilities, dressing rooms and a groundsman's accommodation on a Green Belt site at Apperley Bridge.

In previous planning applications, people have sometimes been asked to make amendments to protect the wildlife.

The residents' protest comes only four months after they were celebrating a U-turn by Bradford City on its plans for a £3 million football academy on fields nearby.

The club decided then to base a large part of the academy at the Eurocam Technology Park at the end of the M606 but the Bantams still want a training base for the academy on the Elm Tree Farm site between Apperley Road and the river.

And shocked residents say it is on a far greater scale than they anticipated and claim it will be a blot on the Green Belt.

Officers are expected to recommend a Bradford area planning panel to approve a application for the development when it meets to consider it on August 24.

A spokesman from the planning department said English Nature had requested an ecology assessment to be carried out by the club on the impact of protected species living there.

Today, Apperley Bridge resident Joan Brown said: "We are very, very disappointed that we are having to go through all of this again. We are in one accord that we do not want it. We expected small changing rooms, but this is far bigger."

The residents are objecting to the use of the Green Belt for the development and say it will spoil a special landscape area.

So far the Council has received 18 letters and a 45-name petition against the proposal. But a planning spokesman said representations up to the day of the meeting would be considered. Residents hope to attend the meeting to put their views forward.

A Council spokesman said it was awaiting environmental assessments from the club which would be considered at the meeting.

The soccer academy would put City in line with other Premiership clubs and enable it to produce home-grown stars.

The club's managing director Shaun Harvey said an environmental assessment was being carried out.

He added: "We feel we have listened to the residents and made concessions. We do not feel this will have any effect on the lives of people living in Apperley Bridge. The development here has been scaled down taking into account their comments.