Land for up to 35,000 new houses will “inevitably” mean building in the greenbelt, a top councillor says.

Clr Peter McBride revealed Kirklees Council are working on a new housing figure of 27,500 – but land for more will be needed in the new Local Plan.

The council will also have to allocate new provisional open land (POL) for a further 7,500 homes.

Clr McBride, Cabinet lead for regeneration, said: “The big thing the public are concerned about is the overall number of new houses needed across the district, or specifically where they will go.

“It looks like the figure for Kirklees is 27,500: the last figure we presented (to the Planning Inspector) was 22,500 and that wasn’t enough.

“There will be a need for a buffer zone, or POL, and we we’re working on 7,500 houses for that.”

POL is land that could be developed in the future should need arise. Sites allocated in 1999 are currently being developed as Kirklees does not have a five-year land supply.

Clr McBride added: “It will mean a huge pressure on land and inevitably the greenbelt.

“We have huge parts of Kirklees that are greenbelt so there is plenty of room to expand and still have greenbelt.”

Jacqui Gedman, director of place, added: “We’re looking at all the existing POL sites, we are assuming that will be used up in the supply chain and there will be additional POL for the plan.”

Around 70% of Kirklees is currently greenbelt – of the remaining 30% around 10% of it is housing.

Housing approved since 2014 will be included in the new figures.

Clr Nigel Patrick, chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Panel for Development and Environment, where the discussion took place, said: “The impact of all this is on infrastructure... new housing places a huge pressure on roads and schools, where is the extra investment coming from?”

Clr McBride said it is dependent on planning contributions from developers but he feared Eric Pickles, local government minister, was introducing polices that “will curtail our ability to draw down resources”.

He added: “We do look at school places, in Lindley where there is huge pressure it may mean a new school in Birkby at some point.”

Clr Phil Scott, a Scrutiny Panel member, asked: “People want to know why greenfield or greenbelt is going before brownfield, what’s the answer?”

Clr McBride added: “I had a conversation with the former planning minister Nick Boles and we put that point to him, told him about landbanking and developers sitting on brownfield land.

“We can give permission but we can’t require them to do it, but Nick Boles didn’t have an answer.

“Without a directive from central government all we can do is look at local incentives.”

Ms Gedman said they were exploring options including tieing in capital from greenbelt into brownfield sites, adding: “We know this is a real issue for residents, we’re trying to be creative within a tight policy framework.”

It will be late summer when the options are published with a public consultation in 2016 and likely adoption in early 2018. However, an emerging plan will give Kirklees more clout over planning applications submitted in the meantime.

Tesco will want to “rid themselves” of the Southgate site as soon as they can, a councillor believes.

Clr Peter McBride thinks the supermarket chain will want to sell it soon as it’s a “valuable piece of land”.

In January Tesco confirmed it was pulling out of building a new store in Huddersfield.

The retailer has bought the site of the two blocks of flats and is due to buy the old sports centre site once Kirklees leaves the site.

A legally-binding deal struck with Kirklees Council is in place even though Tesco no longer wants to build a new supermarket there.

Clr Phil Scott, a member of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Panel for Development and Environment, asked if the council had fears Tesco would land bank the site.

Clr Peter McBride, Cabinet member for investment and regeneration, said: “I don’t think they will do that, I think Tesco want to rid themselves of the responsibility of that site.

“It’s worth a lot of money and negotiations should complete reasonably quickly.

“Tesco will still fulfil their legal obligations to the council, and the value of that land means we’ll make sure something good happens to it.”

Tesco bought the site in a deal that mean Kirklees would get cash for a new sports centre, set to open this summer. Details of the financial arrangements have never been made public.