The first 13 homes are set to be built at a Huddersfield site at which planning permission was granted some 44 years ago.
The Examiner revealed in February that a planning application in Linthwaite granted in 1973, but never built, had been revived out of the blue.
The long forgotten plans to build more than 300 homes off Royd House Lane near the Sair Inn pub are now back on.
The go ahead was given in June 1973 by Colne Valley District Council before the establishment of Kirklees Council.
Nothing significant happened for more than 25 years but then strangely, in the year 2000, Kirklees Council planning officials certified that enough work had been done to keep the plan valid.
Despite the validation there was still no progress and in 2006, then owners of the 44-acre plot, Lexi Holdings Plc, went bust.
A 12-year-long legal battle over Lexi Holdings’ assets, which along with the Linthwaite plot estimated to be worth £15m, also included a further £88m of prime residential land in Manchester, Nottingham and the Lake District, was only resolved in 2014.
The Manchester Evening News reported that Lexi Holdings’ boss Shaid Luqman and his family stole over £100m in the biggest-ever banking fraud of its kind.
Luqman fled the country before he could be jailed and a warrant for his arrest is outstanding.
It has now emerged that the firm bidding to finally build the homes – Endless Developments Ltd – only acquired the huge site in 2015.
The Isle-of-Man based developer has not worked in Huddersfield before.
It bought the land from KPMG who were acting for the administrators Barclays Bank.
John Steel, who is the planning agent for Endless Developments, confirmed his client intended to carry out the full 312 home plan.
The estate will be entirely formed of three-bed terraces, with two different layouts available.
The first 13 will be constructed if Kirklees Council agrees to adopt the road which will become the entry to the estate.
Mr Steel said the developers had also voluntarily come forward to discuss some minor changes to the windows and facias of the houses, first designed more than four decades ago and had opened a dialogue with local residents and councillors.
Reacting to criticism that the area of woodland had been “hacked down”, potentially harming wildlife, Mr Steel said: “It’s not woodland, it’s scrubland.”
He added: “There’s no tree protection orders on the site and no wildlife that we know of. This is just normal site clearance.”
But concerned resident, Gareth Mackenzie, contacted the Examiner with pictures of the clearance work.
He said the area was “home to bats, birds, foxes and deer...and many more small creatures.”
He added: “It has been turned into something resembling a World War 1 battlefield with woods of 100 plus year-old-trees hacked down.”
