This isn't planning for the future
THE key question at the heart of the application for housing land at Hipperholme is whether or not the district could cope with another 160 homes.
It is a question that, for the moment at least, cannot be explored.
When Calderdale's planning authority meets next Tuesday it can decide (in local government's archaic terminology) whether or not a scheme is 'detrimental to the visual amenity of the area'. It is not within its brief to offer up an opinion on the infrastructure. It cannot comment on the 200-plus additional cars picking their way around Spout House Lane and St Giles Road before being unleashed on the area's no.1 blackspot, Hipperholme crossroads.
It cannot comment on how local schools, most of them already bursting at the seams, will cope with an additional 160 children (assuming one school age child per household).
It can give a view based solely on planning grounds. And while there would seem to be any number of those ruling out development, planning officers have recommended that the first stage, changing the status of the land from industrial use to residential, be allowed to go ahead.
If that happens next Tuesday evening – and you wouldn't bet against it – then, in addition to all the repercussions, another large slab of employment land would be lost for good.
And, as far as housing is concerned, do we actually need more at a time when there are more than 3,000 homes standing empty in Calderdale?
These are surely the issues that would assist in planning for the future.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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