People have been asked to identify sites for housing and industry development in Kirklees.

And a top councillor has urged the community to work with the council to help shape planning and development in the district.

Kirklees Council is now seeking people’s views about its Local Plan, which follows the demise of the controversial Local Development Frramework.

The Local Plan is intended to speed up the Local Development Framework Core Strategy process and will set out how the district will grow over the next 15-20 years.

Kirklees say they are “inviting comments on the vision, objectives and priorities for the plan in order to shape its development”.

And Clr Peter McBride, Cabinet member for Place, said: “I think the whole LDF has been an extremely difficult process for people to get their heads around.

“But this is something that does affect people - and we do want people to genuinely work with us on this.”

Residents and land owners can nominate plots of land suitable for development in the council’s ‘call for sites’ bid - and the Local Plan will also identify land to be protected from development. However, it doesn’t guarantee inclusion or exclusion in the Local Plan but brings the land potential to the council’s attention.

The need for a Plan came after the council withdrew the LDF on the advice of a Planning Inspector, who said the authority’s housing numbers were too low and it hadn’t fulfilled its duty to cooperate with neighbouring councils.

Nationally, around half of local authority LDFs need re-writing.

The Local Plan will also set out spatial strategy to provide development in the right place to meet defined needs; number of new homes needed, which could be in excess of 30,000 new homes; site allocation and indication of use such as housing or employment; infrastructure provision and planning policies.

People can submit views for the Local Plan over the next eight weeks until Friday, May 30

Copies of the forms are available at Civic Centre 3 Reception (side entrance), Huddersfield (Monday-Friday 10am-4pm); all town halls, libraries and information centres and on Kirklees Council’s website.

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