The former chairman of Metro believes transport links could pose the biggest problems to plans to build 500 new homes in Burley-in-Wharfedale.

The figure has been sug-gested as part of the plans for the village outlined in the draft Local Development Framework and could be spread across seven sites, almost all of them greenbelt land.

But while independent councillor Chris Greaves, who represents the Wharfedale ward on Bradford Council, thinks 500 new homes is too many, he accepts the need for new homes in the village.

And as former chairman of the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority until earlier this year, he is perhaps in a better position than most to appre-ciate the impact hundreds of homes could have on trans-port infrastructure in the area.

"Assuming the houses are built, people won't buy them, live in them and never go anywhere at all, " he said.

"Most of them will work in Leeds, we know that histori-cally.

"Added to that, the major employment opportunities are going to be in south Leeds which is 15 miles away, we'll be in the position where we're putting the residents 15 miles from where all the job opportunities are going to be which is hardly green and cuddly and environmen-tally-friendly.

"How are they going to get there? The T&A has run story, after story, after story about the A65 being absolute-ly rammed, about the rail-ways being akin to India with people clinging onto the outside with the trains being so overcrowded and the transport infrastructure isn't there.

"The way the Council say they're trying to get around that is having ten hectares of employment land some-where in the valley. Ten hectares is about 16 football pitches.

"The problem is by the nature of the beast, houses in Burley are going to be expensive so you won't be able to afford to live in them unless you're highly paid, so unless this employment land has very highly-paid jobs in it, the people living close to the employment land won't fit the employment created.

"You'd be in the ridiculous position where everyone would move in to the new houses in Burley and drive 15 miles away to work in the centre of Leeds or south Leeds for high-paid jobs and people in cheaper housing areas would be driving or taking public transport 15 miles the other way to take up jobs in the valley."

Housing sites suggested for Burley include fields between the village and neighbouring Menston, more greenbelt land to the north, near Black Bull Farm and the east at Burley Lodge.

The sites have been classed as potentially suitable along with plots at Scalebor Park, an area between Hag Farm Road and the railway line and land to the east of the A65.

A small tranche of land along Grange Road is brand-ed as suitable for work now, but another area alongside the A65 to the south of the village has been branded unsuitable.

But Coun Greaves said any sort of development in Burley would be welcomed by some. He said: "There's got to be an acceptance there will need to be some develop-ment in Burley.

"It won't be all bad for everybody. It would help the shops for example with more customers and so on. I think the important thing is Burley people have to start thinking.

"There's got to be some-thing, but it's a matter of get-ting it right because whatev-er the number ends up as, it's got to be the right sort of housing in the right place.

"If we were to have some more housing, where's the best place and where would it have the least impact on intruding into the green-belt."

The Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA) is a technical document which will provide a pool of sites from which to select land to be allocat-ed for housing when preparing the Local Development Framework.

The Framework is a blueprint that will manage development and growth across the district over the next 15 years.

Consultation on its core strategy document, which sets out a long-term spatial vision for the district until 2028, is continuing. It sets out broad locations for develop-ment and policies that will influ-ence the use of land and the type and scale of development permit-ted, as well as identifying key infrastructure requirements.

The overall Local Development Framework is not expected to come into effect until 2013 with consultation over specific land allocations next year.

Sites included in the existing SHLAA might not make it into the land allocations documents and final framework as no decisions have yet been taken on any of the sites. Further potential sites could be identified as the assessment is updated every year.

Planning policies will continue to emphasise that brownfield sites are the priority over greenfield land, according to the Council.