Campaigners who successfully fought off plans to build 130 new homes in Mirfield face a new battle – 14 years later.

Hundreds of residents joined forces to save Balderstone Hall fields, winning a public inquiry in 1999.

Now Bellway Homes, one of the UK’s biggest house builders, is back with new plans for the land off Hepworth Lane.

The firm will this week distribute 4,000 leaflets to homes across Mirfield and surrounding areas.

It has also organised a public exhibition.

Councillors in Mirfield have vowed to lead the fight and Mayor of Mirfield Clr Vivien Lees-Hamilton said: “It’s a case of deja vu.

“Mirfield’s facilities and infrastructure just cannot cope. The whole town will be gridlocked.”

No planning application has been submitted to Kirklees Council, though the Examiner understands developers will meet planners later this week.

The Examiner also understands that Bellway is planning to build 116 houses on part of the site accessed from the narrow Woodward Court cul-de-sac, close to Crossley Fields Junior and Infant School.

A further 20 homes will be accessed from Hepworth Lane which, in parts, is a single-width road with no pavement.

No plans have been revealed for the rest of the site close to the grade II listed Balderstone Hall.

Mirfield Town Council was due to discuss the matter as an emergency item at its meeting last night and Mirfield Tory councillor Kath Taylor said: “People will be very angry about this.

“We have stopped this development once and we will do it again.”

Clr Taylor’s son James, also a town councillor, saw surveyors on the land last November and said: “Bellway own this land and we always knew they would come back. It was only a matter of when.”

In the late 1990s an action group, Save Mirfield, was set up to fight outline plans for 130 new homes.

Just ahead of a public inquiry at Dewsbury Town Hall, some 900 people met on the fields to spell out the slogan ‘No Way Bellway’.

Residents won the inquiry with the inspector particularly concerned about access to the land.

Mirfield Town Council is set to instruct its planning consultant Robert Halstead, who told the Examiner that access and the roads network would again be key issues.

He said the introduction of more cars, particularly near Crossley Fields school, would create “huge conflict.”

There are already big problems with parking at the school, he said.

Clr Lees-Hamilton said the housing plan was not just an issue for the Northorpe area of the town.

She added: “There’s no room at the schools, the doctors’ or the dentists’ and just imagine trying to get an extra 100 cars out of Mirfield at peak times.

“North Road, Sunnybank and Cooper Bridge are already full. The town would be gridlocked.”

Bellway’s plans will go on display at Northorpe Hall in Northorpe Lane on Monday, November 4, between 4pm and 7.30pm.

A Bellway spokesman said: “All thoughts and suggestions received as part of the consultation will be carefully considered and used to shape the proposals before a planning application is submitted to the council.”