A developer has proposed smashing through a row of terraced homes to build a new estate.
The plan to build 63 homes on disused land in Mirfield has been lodged with Kirklees Council.
It entails demolishing part of a row of houses on Old Bank Road, close to the Thirsty Man pub, to make an access road to the development.
The unusual idea has been proposed despite an access road to the scrub land, close to the pub already being available.
The developer’s plan would see that route blocked off by the back gardens of some of the new homes.
Mirfield councillor, Martyn Bolt, said the plan had been proposed before but had been “thrown out” by the council.
He said at the time, the houses planned for demolition had been abandoned and been used by drug addicts.
But they have now been refurbished and are currently occupied by tenants.
It is thought the two homes proposed to be flattened are still owned by the owner of the land behind, a former dumping ground for industrial and chemical waste.
Clr Bolt said the proposal had reared its head again due to the council’s failure to implement its Local Development Framework (LDF) in 2013 after a legal hiccup.
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Kirklees Council’s second attempt at a planning framework, dubbed the Local Plan, is currently underway and is expected to be legally adopted next year.
Clr Bolt said he preferred developers to target brownfield sites such as this one, with the caveat that infrastructure needed to be in place before the houses were built.
“This is where the public get exasperated,” he said.
“We’re told these targets for X number of houses we have to have but it’s a fallacy.
“We have developers who will keep building houses for as long as they can.
“This development is by one of Mirfield’s most congested roads which can have a queue about a mile-long in the morning.
“Sixty-odd more houses will just add to that.”
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Documents submitted by developer, Yorkshire Property Estates, say it would build a mix of traditional family homes on the site, an old tip which closed some time prior to 1993.
An environmental report reveals the site was used to dispose of chemical waste from Mirvale Chemical Works, now Dr Reddy’s on Steanard Lane.
It says the land was mined between 1918 and 1922 and then filled in between the 1950s and 1993.
It says up until 1978 the dumping of waste was “uncontrolled” and included industrial chemical waste from Mirvale, which made creosote and agricultural chemicals.
However, experts called in to analyse the earth say the waste is deep enough to pose little risk to anyone that bought a home there.
But the firm does recommend that a system of trenches to allow gases to escape is created.
The aim is to build 34 three-bed houses and 29 four-bed homes.
All 63 homes would have two parking spaces.
The proposal will be considered by Kirklees Strategic Planning Committee.
