Protesters against a bid to build homes on an undeveloped site in Bradford have invited groups fighting other green field developments to join forces against the Council’s planning policies.

Heaton Township Association chairman Elizabeth Hellmich said it hoped to start a petition asking the Council to reconsider its development policies at a public meeting later this month.

She said: “What we want to do is get all the other groups in Bradford together which are having the same problems as we are having at this meeting.

“We are not being listened to. They are building on green sites and expanding the city out further and further. In the middle we have got the brown field sites but because it appears to be easier they are just going for the green fields.

“There isn’t the infrastructure for it.”

Mrs Hellmich said the association wanted to hear from groups including the Greenhill Action Group, which has been campaigning against a development of 475 homes off Sty Lane, Micklethwaite, and the Tong and Fulneck Valley Partnership, which opposes plans which set out Tong Valley for potential development.

Other groups invited to the meeting include Baildon Residents Against Inappropriate Development, which opposes a planned multi-million pound hi-tech business park, and the Menston Action Group, which has campaigned against Barratt Homes’ proposal for 174 homes in Derry Hill in the village.

The meeting will be held from 7pm on Monday, January 24, at Heaton St Barnabas Village Hall, in Ashwell Road, Heaton.

Julian Jackson, the Council’s assistant director for planning, transportation and highways, said all development proposals were determined in accordance with the statutory development plan, the replacement Unitary Development Plan (RUDP) adopted in 2005.