I’M not quite sure what message Kirklees Council leader Clr Mehboob Khan was trying to convey in his justification for the despoiling of greenfield sites in Tuesday’s Examiner (‘We need to free up more land for firms’).
He seemed to be saying that Kirklees needs more industrial sites so that the council can cope with changes to the business rate that the Government plans.
OK, I agree, but what happened to all the brownfield sites that already have good communication access? Surely these would be preferable to all but developers, who prefer greenfield sites as construction is easier and profits greater on a blank canvass.
How exactly will building residential homes on greenfield sites increase the Kirklees take from the commercial business rate?
Sadly his muddled thinking is partly to blame for the confusion that increases the council’s dependency on the so-called experts in the Highways and Planning departments.
Trevor Woolley
Linthwaite
We cannot stand alone
REALLY, Clr Khan? We don’t regard ourselves as part of a conurbation?
We have been part of the huge conurbation around the M62 corridor ever since it was built.
Year-on-year businesses have migrated out of Huddersfield as employers have rationalised their operations to sites with better transport and service options.
The majority of the villages around Huddersfield which have reasonable access to the motorway, train stations or trunk roads have become dormitories for people employed in Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield.
We are in the midst of another employment revolution where businesses are driving down costs by downsizing their work forces, replacing labour with technology as computers become ever more sophisticated, and outsourcing ‘non core’ activities to companies at home and overseas who have lower labour costs.
Capital and profit know no man-made political boundaries: they chase the highest returns.
It’s little use Kirklees standing alone. What Kirklees is proposing will, at best, delay even more migration of both businesses and the young out of Huddersfield.
What is needed is a regional plan covering the future industrial, commercial and infrastructure needs of the whole corridor agreed by the politicians, voters and businesses.
However, given the short-term, inward-looking stance of all those parties, I suspect we’ll carry on gently declining.
Markham Weavill
Linthwaite
Actions, not words
CLR Khan says that planning restrictions must be removed and green fields will have to be built on because Kirklees badly needs a lot more money.
Clr Khan was not here in the days of uncontrolled sprawl and ribbon development in the 1930s – but then very few Examiner readers can remember those days, and the rest show little interest in the past.
But look more closely at what he is actually saying – which is that Kirklees really must attract a lot more industry or it will be very short of cash.
Now industry is not housing, and if the two are separated then the destruction of our beautiful countryside (to which this government seems committed) can be limited.
Local industry, whether established or new, can be accommodated locally without too much difficulty; attracting industry and business from away is a more specialised and particular problem.
Almost all such demand will be for near-motorway-interchange locations, and if our council is as desperate as Clr Khan says, then plans should be laid accordingly by allocating land beside The Ainleys junction and at Outlane, together with upgrading that junction to a full interchange.
If the council really meant it then they would be looking again at what was omitted from the proposals in the excellent 1965 Huddersfield Town Centre study and carry out the major project which was the basis of that work; namely the Longroyd Freeway, a motorway which was planned to run from the M62 at Outlane all round the south side of the town and out to the Clifton interchange via Cooper Bridge.
Now this wonderful, imaginative road, omitted by the then council in 1965, really would bring industry and business to the town, besides being of great benefit to the area in general.
But then, I suppose pigs might fly – and the council is perhaps not so desperate?
Arthur Quarmby
Holme
Whither democracy?
I HAVE been horrified to read that the Lindley Moor saga is again being put up for another councillors’ vote only a matter of weeks after the planning department lost out in their continued support for house building proposals.
Their claim now is that Kirklees would lose any appeal made by the builder and would have to pay an estimated six figure sum in costs.
One reason being put forward is that those appealing have won an average of five out of 11 cases. That means that the majority of six out of 11 have been lost on appeal.
The planning department is clearly intent on surrendering without bothering to fight for the democratic vote and overwhelming support of the inhabitants of the area.
The real reason, of course, is that they want any developer to perform the duties that they have been lamentable in providing over the last 10 years.
The local authority has been able to provide only a little over 10% of its own affordable housing requirement since 2006, yet there are 6,891 households on the waiting list as of April 2010 with Kirklees delivering an average of only 157 per year, which would take 44 years to deliver.
Affordable housing is the new name for council house provision which, of course, Kirklees was happy to sell off and pocket the money to be subsequently wasted on projects such as the St George’s Square debacle and the provision of public money to renovate private houses in Lockwood and many other projects.
The above facts were provided by Miller Homes’ agents in ‘selling’ the Lindley Moor development to the people of Lindley.
If it is cost that they are frightened of then we, the people of the Lindley Moor area, are now waiting for the allocation of the previously quoted £2m worth of funds.
These are for the already long overdue infrastructure improvements that the developer’s agents stated to overcome the ‘capacity constraints for the whole site’ and ‘existing congestion on local roads’.
Kirklees, that is due now before you plan to approve any more projects, at your cost, not a developer’s.
Similarly, the schooling cost provision to be made by the developer into Kirklees’ coffers. Would it be ring-fenced for the Lindley area? How does a payment to Kirklees’ education fund help finance a central-government funded Lindley Junior academy school?
We also would look forward to our heavily subsidised ‘sustainable form of transport’ also hinted at by the developer if this development proceeds, and the provision of a resident street cleaning machine for the six years envisaged for the development. What is the cost of such a machine, surely a six-figure sum?
The message is clear to Kirklees. You cannot afford to fund such a development and maintain your credibility to the people of the Lindley Moor area.
The alternative to a failed democratic process is anarchy. We also had that in Kirklees a few weeks ago. Is that what you risk advocating?
Lindley resident
A roundabout way
IN these days of austerity the council could have saved money by not painting the right filter arrow on to the road at the approaches to the newly resurfaced Gledholt roundabout.
Since the signs have been painted I have counted at least 10 drivers in the last week who have sailed past me in the right filter lane and then proceeded to cut into the queue of the traffic going straight on or turning left.
Perhaps a new paint is being used that these particular drivers fail to see. Is incorrect lane use a flogging offence?
Disgruntled Mr Charles
Edgerton
Going really slowly
MR Hunter, of Lepton, (Mailbag, September 15) is talking sense – “... most people would support a 20 mph limit near schools, if applied an hour or so either side of school hours, but not 24/7.”
Unfortunately, common sense seems to be in short supply in Kirklees Council.
Having spent the £90,000 or so in Meltham, one would reasonably expect that the 20 mph zone would have included Meltham CE Junior School. Dream on! The zone starts 100/150 yards down the road.
About the only good things to come out of the money spent are a zebra crossing outside the Co-op and a ghost roundabout at the entrance to Morrison’s.
Unfortunately, the latter seems to confuse a lot of drivers. It is a roundabout. ŠNothing coming from your right? Then it is your right of way.
Mention was made in the original article of Meltham being the first for a 20 mph zone.
No it was not. It may have been the first proposed, but Honley had one in place long before Meltham.
A L Jones
Meltham
