Calderdale councillors met by angry protesters over Local Plan proposals in Greetland

“Save our green belt, save our Greetland” they chanted and waved placards to drive their message home outside Halifax Town Hall, supported by Greetland and Stainland ward councillors.

The Local Plan was not an agenda item at the meeting but the campaigners said they wanted to make sure residents registered their objections to new sites put late last year into the draft plan before the six week consultation period runs out on February 24.

A spokesperson for the pressure group said they had attracted hundreds of members to the Greetland Pressure Group since it formed at the start of the year with 200 people attending a meeting at the village’s Crosshills Methodist Church on Monday where advice was given on how to object to proposals for around 600 homes which can be made on the council’s website.

“Our green belt is particularly important to us and the wider community in Calderdale – they come from outside to use this green belt,” she said.

The meeting broke the subject down into different areas where they believe objections can be sustained, she said, including saving green belt land, flooding concerns, air pollution, the impact on the community and insufficient infrastructure to support that number of new homes.

In particular the potential siting of many of the homes on Saddleworth Road, which had pre-school and primary school premises on the route, was a serious concern as traffic impact was already bad there now, she said.

“Saddleworth Road experiences a lot of traffic – you can smell the fumes – and traffic will increase by over 100 per cent.

“If you pollute and poison our children, you pollute and poison our future.

“The group was set up originally by mothers who were terrified of what this would mean for their children at the school and pre-school,” she said.

Greetland and Stainland ward councillor Coun Paul Bellenger (Lib Dem) said the sites’ inclusion in the draft Local Plan – submissions will be considered by Planning Inspector Katie Child, who group members have also written to, before phase two of hearings into the plan resume in the spring – would heavily impact on the area.

“They would have a detrimental impact on ecology on that stretch of land known for flooding, and for the wildlife that thrives within it.

“Six hundred houses would bring further congestion to the area with further air pollution, factors that don’t seem to have been taken into account.

“I’m not against development, however I think it needs to be in the right place and proportionate,” he said.

In the council meeting his ward colleague Coun Marilyn Greenwood (Lib Dem) said a great swathe of green belt would be taken away if the sites were allowed in the draft plan, increasing pollution by 100 per cent.

Coun Jane Scullion (Lab, Luddenden Foot), Cabinet member for Regeneration and Resources, said going forward there would part two of the examination of the plan and any comments at this stage would go to the Inspector.

Not every piece of land in the draft local plan would be developed, she said, with some of the issues raised being taken into account at the planning stage.