Developers and campaigners clash over impact of major homebuilding might have on Hipperholme crossroads

Mixed use developments are being planned on or near the former Crosslee factory site at Brighouse Road, Hipperholme, latest hearings into Calderdale’s draft Local Plan.

Inspector Katie Child, presiding over the hearings, said modelling assumptions about air quality – impacted by emissions from vehicles – for the area were that traffic would be lighter than the previous industrial use.

For 30 years tumble driers were made at the factory but it closed three years ago.

Ms Child wanted to know how that could be when residential, employment and a supermarket were proposed on land there.

Calderdale Council’s lead planning officer, Richard Seaman, said there were differences between strategic level and planning application level assessments.

“It is a brownfield site in a highly sustainable location with mixed uses,” he said.

It included residential development close to employment and retail development, so there was some mitigation built in.

Mark Eagland, of Peacock and Smith Ltd, for Crosslee, said the factory use had generated significant amounts of traffic going through Hipperholme crossroads.

The planning application package already produced proposed and encouraged non-transport modes of travel including routes for pedestrians and cyclists, electric charging points were built into the development to encourage electric vehicle use and even an electric car owners’ club was proposed.

“It’s an inherently sustainable development,” he said.

Hipperholme resident George Pitt strongly disagreed and said traffic had increased 610 per cent on Brighouse Road in the last 14 years.

Earlier in the hearing resident Roger Drayton was concerned nitrogen oxide levels at the village’s crossroads were already right up against the legal limit and with a number of developments planned nearby the levels would worse as vehicles gave out more of the emissions when starting from cold.

Speaking later specifically about the Crosslee issue, he said it was vital a cumulative appraisal was done regarding applications already announced for the site and other pieces of land close by.

There was currently permission for more than 90 homes on a part of the Crosslee site separate from the main application, which itself proposed 166 homes and included a care facility.

Other large developments were also being planned within half a mile, he said.

If approved, the Local Plan would see around 9,700 new homes built, in addition to sites which already have permission, in Calderdale over the life of the plan into the early 2030s.

Ms Child, appointed by the Government, will decide whether or not the plan is sound.

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