A small piece of land may have saved Netherthong open land from being developed.

For the Land Registry has just confirmed that the residents - and not developer Stuart Hepworth - owns the access rights.

St Mary's Avenue Netherthong - ownership of this piece of road may have put a stop to the fields beyond being developed

And it means Mr Hepworth may find it difficult to access the land off St Mary’s Avenue, where he’s secured consent to build houses.

The saga cames after Planning Inspector Anne Jordan - and latterly Kirklees councillors - gave the go-ahead for housing and access off St Mary’s Avenue in the village.

It was despite residents highlighting an access rights dispute - with the land owner and the developer both claiming rights to the bit of road that leads to the fields.

Mr Hepworth could not be contacted to comment on the issue, but his planning agent described it as a “private matter between the applicant and owner of this land”.

Since securing consent to build last month, Mr Hepworth has listed the land for sale via Michael Steel and Co in Leeds.

A sales document states under the word ‘access’: “The outline consent secured dictates access off St Mary’s Avenue and we are advised the vendor is able to provide access to the site.”

Yesterday they told us: “We went through all this in great detail with the site owner and were advised it had been dealt with.

“I’ve fired off an email to the land owner to see what the new information is.”

Asked if the site would remain listed for sale despite a number of people contacting them about the dispute, he added: “We’ll wait for the applicant’s response.”

At September’s Huddersfield Planning Committee, councillors felt they had no choice but to approve the housing and access application after hearing they’d lost an appeal for the same site.

A Kirklees planning officer did explain the dispute was not a material planning consideration and access was an issue to be resolved between the developer and the land owner.

The land is classed as Provisional Open Land (POL) and the council has lost a number of appeals for such sites due to the lack of a five-year housing supply and the limbo left by the failure of the Local Development Framework.