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CALDERDALE'S house building boom is set to increase further – if regional planners have their way.
Targets proposed by the Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Assembly have been upped from 450 to 580 extra homes to be created across the district every year until 2016.
And between 2016 and 2021, Calderdale will need to find land for 670 new homes a year or to create them through mill and other property conversions.
It is not only more homes that are required but also changes to the current mix of housing provision, according to the assembly.
Far more affordable homes are needed along with a switch from small apartments to family orientated flats and more tradional family homes with gardens.
Calderdale Council Planning Committee chairman Tom McElroy said he was both disappointed and relieved by the new housing targets.
He has previously called for the brakes to be slapped on house building in Calderdale for fear that it would make the area a dormitory town to Leeds and Manchester. "In our original discussions a target of 650 homes a year was put forward but we managed to reduce that to 580 which, after demolitions are taken into account, means about 500 new-build properties," said Coun McElroy (Lab, Illingworth and Mixenden).
"That is higher than I would have liked but we will get the chance to revisit the figure over time."
He said that for Calderdale to be successful, it needed a mixed economy with employment opportunities as well as first-class housing.
Deputy chairman Grenville Horsfall (Con, Skircoat) said the existing house building target was already too high.
"The builders in some areas have gone berserk – trying to put houses on plots of land the size of a postage stamp.
"You only have to look around to see the number of for sale signs and empty apartments to know we are not short of housing in Calderdale," he said.
The regional assembly, which is made up of council leaders, business and community representatives from Scarborough to Sheffield, York and Leeds will publish its revised "Regional Spatial Strategy" for public consultation in January, with a view to it being adopted by the Government in 2007.
l Since 1998, between 500 and 750 new homes have been built or created in Calderdale each year.
However, Pennine Housing plans to demolish 120 homes this year because they are difficult to let and nearly 300 more in the three multi-storey blocks at Crib Lane, Halifax.
michael.peel@halifaxcourier.co.uk
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