It’s decision day on Thursday for Kirklees councillors and campaigners in a long-running row over a Huddersfield beauty spot.

A planning inspector has set a deadline of Thursday, February 22, for the council to finally rule on an application lodged three years ago by the Clayton Fields Action Group to add a footpath through the site off Edgerton Road, Edgerton.

Campaigners lost their 18-year battle to prevent planning permission for more than 40 houses to be built on the eight-acre site after the registration of Clayton Fields as a village green was declared invalid by the Supreme Court in 2014.

But they have pressed ahead with demands for pathways running through the beauty spot to be recognised as official public rights of way.

Clayton Fields, Edgerton

Planning inspector Helen Slade decided last November to give Kirklees Council three months in which to rule on the footpath issue.

In her “direction decision” she said councils were required to deal with applications “as soon as reasonably practicable” and applicants had the right to ask the Secretary of State to direct a planning inspector to make a decision if the council failed to do so.

In this case, three years had passed since the application was submitted and no exceptional circumstances for such a delay had been indicated by Kirklees.

The application calls for a footpath to run from the footbridge over Clayton Dike on an existing footpath in an easterly direction to meet Queens Road near its junction with Murray Road.

Mike Woodward, chair of Marsh Community Forum, who intends to speak at Thursday's meeting of the Huddersfield area planning sub-committee, said: “The future of Clayton Fields has been argued about for the past 15 to 20 years.

Mike Woodward and Paul Cooney are asking Kirklees Council to adopt 20mph speed limits in residential streets
Mike Woodward and Paul Cooney are asking Kirklees Council to adopt 20mph speed limits in residential streets

“It is a rare, undeveloped site in an otherwise densely populated part of Huddersfield. It provides habitat for local wildlife as well as being an open area that local people can enjoy.

“For a while the area appeared to have been protected because it was registered as a village green for both Edgerton and Birkby. That protection was lost following a number of court cases, which I think were eventually decided in the Supreme Court.

“It ruled that the village green registration was at fault because it had been made jointly in the names of both Birkby and Edgerton. Had it been in one or the other then the village green status would have been valid and remained in place.”

Site clearance work starts at Clayton Fields, off Queens Road, Edgerton, Huddersfield - Prospect Estates Acquisitions Manager Rob Cooke.

Marketing of the site began in December 2016, with potential buyers asked to bid for plots.

However, the l and remains undeveloped and having once been cleared of vegetation in readiness for building work has become grassed over again.