Council kiboshes its own plans for new homes

Craven District Council has rejected its own plans for new affordable homes.

The council’s planning committee kiboshed plans for 13 new affordable homes which were designed to help first time buyers get on the property ladder over fears it would “drive a the coach and horses through the local plan” and after receiving almost 50 objections, which one councillor claimed the authority had ignored.

Cllr David Statt said the main concerns related to road safety and the potential for a child to be “seriously injured or killed” and questioned “why the council doesn’t share our concerns and just dismisses it as a resident’s problem”.

Also challenging the application Cllr Alan Sutcliffe, vice chair of Craven District Council noted that approving the application would highlight the issues with the council’s local plan, which doesn’t include the proposed site but sets out where new homes will be built over the next 11 years.

He said: “If we allow this application to now be approved, we would be driving the coach and horses through the Local Plan.”

Adding that the application “would be a precedent for other similar scenarios and quite simply result in a steady erosion of the Local Plan which we fought so pertinently for.”