Major housing plans for Lindley are unsustainable, according to Huddersfield’s Civic Society.
Plans to transform the landscape at Peat Pond Farm off Lindley Moor Road and Crosland Road are now open to public consultation at Kirklees Council until December 8.
As the Examiner has reported, the application is to demolish existing buildings and replace them with two industrial units and 253 new homes.
House builders will be Harron Homes and Taylor Wimpenny homes, with Harron Homes already behind 42 of the 294 houses on a nearby site.
The latest application shows there will be three plots. Plot A will be 150,000sqft of production area, 60,000sqft warehouse, 10,000 sq ft offices; plot B will be 45,119 sq ft Industrial unit, 5,102sqft offices; and plot C will be housing.
Chris Marsden, chairman of the Huddersfield Civic Society, said: “Developers see money in houses, but this site has never been allocated for housing and this is simply not the right place for housing.
“To put 253 houses on this site without any sense of it being part of a community is wrong – the proposal is unsustainable.
“Unlike the plan for St Luke’s in Crosland Moor, which has a village centre, this has nothing.
“It is not sustainable, there is nothing for public transport. Traffic on Crosland Road is already congested, Lindley Moor Road is a fast, heavily-congested road already.
“We all felt at the time the data centre was approved that it was ill-advised and a trojan horse. It seems to have been a warm-up to something else, which is this.”
In a report with the planning application the developers say: “The residential element of the proposed development is considered necessary to deliver the associated employment development as this will facilitate highways and infrastructure works which, in turn, will assist in delivery of the remainder of the employment allocation.
“The proposed employment uses will safeguard and create hundreds in jobs in Kirklees
“The site is in a sustainable location and is highly accessible to the principal highway network and, in particular, the M62 corridor.”
Plans show there could be nine 2-bed houses; 109 three-bed houses; 133 four-bed houses and two five-bed houses, and there will be 511 parking spaces for the 294 houses.
Affordable housing is yet to be decided, but Kirklees has a policy of 30% of the floorspace for affordable homes on greenfield land.
Also included is improving the existing footpath to a combined cycleway and bridal path, highway improvements plus a footpath along Crosland Road.
