Campaigners who fought to save hundreds of green spaces have spoken out after the controversial Local Plan was given the seal of approval.

Kirklees Council’s borough wide development blueprint – which allocates land for 31,000 homes, offices, factories and even travellers’ caravan sites – has been given the green light by Planning Inspector Katie Child.

While there are still some bureaucratic hoops to jump through, she has indicated to council planning chiefs that the masterplan will be found to be “legally sound”.

The only route of appeal for protestors now is to urge the Secretary of State to “call it in” or to take expensive legal action.

Day one of the public examination in to Kirklees Council's Local Plan at the Hudawi Centre, Huddersfield.

Senior councillors backing the plan are confident they will have all the matter wrapped up by January or February next year.

And they have celebrated after the majority of the sites earmarked for major housing developments were allowed, including at Bradley Park Golf Course, on green belt at Ravensthorpe and in Dewsbury.

Two large industrial proposals have been blocked by the inspector: units on rural land by Robin Hood’s Grave near the Three Nuns junction at Cooper Bridge, and a huge site at Clayton West.

Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman has told the Examiner he will consider approaching the Minister for Housing, who has the power to intervene.

He commented: “It’s quite a blow for all of us who’ve been campaigning to keep that green lung as something special.”

Referring to the golf course site, he added: “I think 1,500 homes is too many. I’d like to see half that, but that’s something I can argue with the minister.”

All this could be homes if plans for Dewsbury Riverside get the green light. The image shows the view north towards Ravensthorpe from Ouzelwell Lane

Keith Waddington, chairman of Bradley Park Golf Club, said: “I did think that we had done enough so we are disappointed.

“We have given it a really good shot.

“Hopefully we’ll find out more reasons why and we’ll take the action on what we do next.

“The report is very short on detail. We don’t know how she has arrived at her decision.“

After spending hundreds of hours on representations to the inspector, a number of volunteers who took part in the Local Plan inquiry between October last year and April have also spoken of their disappointment or joy.

Robert Bamforth, who spoke for the Campaign to Protect Rural England at many of the hearings into various sites, disputed that Kirklees had totally got its way.

He said while there was some disappointment, the council had been forced to make a lot of changes to its original proposals.

Plans for 4,000 homes at 'Dewsbury Riverside' between Mirfield and Ravensthorpe

But he said they had calculated that some 11,500 of the homes were on green belt land, about a third of the total.

“The decision demonstrates just how much pressure there is on the Planning Inspector to approve the plans,” he said.

“A very large amount of green belt land is being sacrificed and there’s absolutely no mention of that by the council or the inspector.

“Clr McBride says the plan will protect us but it does no such thing, it absolutely ravages the green belt.

“We also have to remember plans by Calderdale and Bradford close to the green belt – we’re turning West Yorkshire into one continuous urban conurbation.”

Mr Bamforth said the inspector had made some significant changes in the timelines of housing delivery, forcing the council to pull back from its rush of getting much of it up within five years, to a slower 15-year time frame.

Members of the Upper Dearne Valley Environmental Trust (UDVET) were the main winners of the announcement, after the inspector agreed with them that a 40 acre plot of green belt near Clayton West should not be destroyed to allow warehouse construction.

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Spokesperson Helen France, said: “We’re absolutely delighted, it’s a fantastic conclusion to three years of very hard work.

“It is a massive site that would have gobbled up productive farms and green belt in one of the most beautiful valleys in Kirklees.

“We thought it was a very ill-founded allocation by the council so we’re delighted that our case has been listend to for once.”

Over in north Kirklees, the news wasn’t so good for those trying to prevent thousands of homes on the green belt.

About 4,000 can now be built in between Ravensthorpe, Thornhill and Mirfield, and a further 1,500 on a rural site at Chidswell, between Leeds Road and the M1.

Cheryl Tyler, of the Save Mirfield group, spoke against the so called Dewsbury Riverside plan at several of the hearings.

She said she wasn’t surprised the site, the largest in the Local Plan, had been allowed.

“If the bigger sites had been refused then the whole Local Plan would have fallen flat,” she said.

“I think the inspector would be under lots of pressure from the Inspectorate to approve as many Local Plans as she could.

“Unfortunately it’s just a tick box exercise where they have ‘X’ number of houses and have to find somewhere to put them.

“This isn’t automatic planning permission, they still need to apply for that, but we feel they’ve missed a golden opportunity to do a lot more regeneration of brownfield sites.”

Mrs Tyler said there were concerns about whether Mirfield and the surrounding areas could cope with the extra traffic and demand on services.

She added: “During the hearings it was said that 2,000 homes could be built before they need to do anything major for the traffic – it’s going to be a nightmare.

“If they start building without any infrastructure improvements there’s going to be huge problems.”

Chairman of Chidswell Action Group, Mark Eastwood, said: “We are bitterly disappointed with the Planning Inspector’s findings and that she hasn’t concluded that the Local Plan is unsound, particularly in relation to the amount of green belt development allocated within it and the lack of any brownfield first approach.

“We are also disappointed there was no recommendation to remove Chidswell from the site allocations, although she has recommended other proposed developments be taken out.

“With this in mind, we will be organising an urgent meeting with our planning lawyer to consider our next move.”