It is understandable that there should be widespread alarm across Bradford at the estimate by the Yorkshire & Humber Assembly of the number of new homes the district might need. It is a huge increase on the figure provided for in the Unitary Development Plan, and accepted by the Council, of 1,390 houses a year over the next ten years.

That alone would put a serious strain on available land in the district. The new estimate, for 1,950 new homes a year up to 2016 climbing to 2,370 a year by 2021, is bound to eat into the ever-dwindling stock of green fields, especially in those areas on the outskirts favoured by the developers because it is there that they can ask the highest prices for the properties they build. As the Council's executive member for the environment, Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, points out, there are not enough former industrial sites where that number of homes could be built.

Apart from the land needed for building purposes there would be the little matter of boosting the infrastructure - schools, roads, medical centres, transport links - to cater for a population predicted by the Assembly to increase from 477,000 in 2003 to 559,000 in 2023.

The policy manager of the Assembly's regional planning and transport team admits that the figures are provisional. Let's hope for Bradford's sake that the consultation exercise and hearing into it which are to come - which will require another, unfortunately necessary, outlay of public money on top of the huge cost of the inquiry into the UDP - prove that there has been a sizeable over-estimate.