Masterplan behind building nearly 10,000 Calderdale homes to resume this year

The status of the second phase of hearings into the plan, which will set out sites where potentially 9,970 new homes could be built and new businesses sited over the next decade, had been put on hold because of the coronavirus crisis.

But councillors heard during the public question time at the council’s Cabinet meeting that the second phase hearings, which will examine concerns about specific sites, would take place this year.

Cabinet member for Regeneration and Resources, Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot), said the council had been contacted by the Planning Inspector, Katie Child.

“We have heard from the Planning Inspector that the second part of the Local Plan examination is likely to go ahead later this year.

“It’s not clear about what form that will take, whether in person or virtually, or a hybrid, that remains to be determined by the Inspector,” she said.

A member of the public had asked if, with the UK at risk of entering recession amid the coronavirus crisis, would the council downgrade its economic outlook so less green belt sites would have to be included in the plan for new homes?

Coun Scullion said the Inspector would interrogate the issue of economic growth and housing need.

“I expect the Inspector to be full and rigorous in her examination of the issues he (the questioner) raises,” she said.

Coun Scullion said the pandemic meant a lot of policies would have to be examined, but one effect of the pandemic was people placing more value on the sort of green areas and views Calderdale had to offer, making it more popular as a place to live.

Revisions to the plan the council had asked for included more mixed use sites where people might “live over the shop” and this had proved prescient in terms of what the future might look like after the pandemic with more people working from home, she said.