A developer is hoping changes to national green belt policy will enable them to build four new homes on a car park opposite a historic Calderdale hostelry.

The Grade II listed Triangle Inn at Rochdale Road in Triangle closed as a pub more than a decade ago.

Leeds & Bradford Properties Limited have now applied to Calderdale Council seeking permission to build the new homes on the former pub car park, opposite the inn.

Calderdale’s Local Plan, adopted in 2023, says the car park in in the Green Belt.

The Triangle Inn, with car park opposite, at Triangle, near Sowerby Bridge.

placeholder image — The Triangle Inn, with car park opposite, at Triangle, near Sowerby Bridge.

The applicant argues the new homes will be “inherently linked” to conversion of the pub itself, for which planning permission and listed building consent was given in 2021.

Last August plans were put in, and then withdrawn, for new homes as an “enabling development”.

That application argued that as an enabling development it should be an exception to Green Belt policy, in order to subsidise the repair and conversion of the inn.

A planning statement with the new application – number 24/01296/FUL, for the homes and associated works – by William Cartwright of Heritage Planning Design Ltd (HPD), says the August 2024 application was withdrawn a month after submission because it became clear Green Belt rules were changing.

A revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was published in December 2024 and HPD’s interpretation is that the proposal no longer constitutes inappropriate development in the Green Belt.

Mr Cartwright argues that on this basis the proposal does not need to be justified as an exception to Green Belt policy by demonstrating “very special circumstances” for it to be allowed.

“The developers do not consider it is viable to develop and sell the dwellings proposed without addressing the inn opposite, which has a considerable negative impact on property prices in the vicinity,” adds the supporting statement.

External works relating to the 2021 repair and conversion permissions were completed in autumn 2024 to prevent these permissions from expiring.

The new proposal is for a row of stone-faced dwellings, with landscaping and including the provision of 10 car parking spaces to also serve the inn, once converted, if planners agree.

The application can be viewed on the council’s website.