PEOPLE across two communities are being urged to have their say over Bradford Council’s newly-published Local Plan.

Craven-ward district councillor Adrian Naylor is encouraging residents in Silsden and Steeton-with-Eastburn to examine the document and give their views.

The draft Local Plan outlines the likely location for where tens of thousands of new homes in the Bradford district will be built by 2038.

Sites are allocated that will be used to meet Government-appointed housing targets and help shape planning decisions.

The hefty document also includes locations for future employment sites.

Cllr Naylor said: “Bradford has had to review its core strategy, which has led to a change in the housing numbers that various towns and villages such as Silsden and Steeton-with-Eastburn have been allocated – together with the sites where these houses are to be located.

“Bradford Council is currently consulting on these new proposals. I would encourage everyone to have a look at its website and make whatever comments you wish – at bradford.oc2.uk/document/20. The consultation timescale is very short – it closes on March 24.”

He said Silsden had been “relatively lucky” in terms of the housing numbers imposed.

In the ‘adopted plan’ of 2017 the town had been allocated 1,200 homes, which dropped to 800 in a partial review two years later. Under the current proposals the figure has fallen further, to 700.

Cllr Naylor said: “There is good news in that a large area from Brown Bank Lane towards the site of the new school has been rejected for development for a number of reasons – such as access, and landscape and heritage impacts.

“The new location for most of the housing is around the old Weavestyle site/Riverside Works and the fields behind them along the canal, together with fields off Woodside Road which total over half of Silsden’s housing allocation – with 447 houses.”

He says that Steeton-with-Eastburn had also seen a reduction in numbers from the adopted plan to the core strategy partial review of 2019, when there were 150, but that figure has increased to 175 in the latest proposals.

“The majority of the housing – some 120 units – is for land behind Summerhill Lane between the railway and the cricket ground,” said Cllr Naylor.

He added: “Due to Covid restrictions there will not be the usual availability of hard copies of the proposed new plan – nor will there be public presentations – so I strongly encourage people to go to Bradford Council’s website and engage in the consultation, as the deadline of March 24 is approaching fast.”