Campaigners against a proposed housing development on green fields near Bingley have made an urgent call for funds to help fight a planning appeal.

Bradford councillors overwhelmingly rejected an application to build up to 440 homes at Sty Lane in Micklethwaite at a planning committee meeting in Bingley last month.

They said access to the site, via a swing bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, was inadequate.

But developers Redrow and Bellway have lodged an appeal with the Government and a public inquiry is to start at Bradford City Hall on February 21.

Terry Brown, chairman of Greenhill Action Group (Gag), which has been fighting the proposals, said objectors now had two weeks to raise £60,000 to employ a barrister and consultants to represent them for the ten days of the inquiry.

“We have got to try to kill this appeal off once and for all,” he said. “If we don’t succeed in doing that the developers can keep coming back with applications until they wear everybody out.

“If all we do is go in and say the swing bridge is not suitable they can come back with a fixed bridge. That is why we need to spend as much as we are doing on professional help. We have got to have our experts there when the opposition are giving evidence so our experts can challenge it.”

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