Kirklees Council’s next Local Plan needs to have more housing built closer to town centres and  brownfield sites

Sometime next winter Kirklees Council has to announce its draft local plan stating, among other things, all its preferred sites for new housing for the next few years that will meet the government’s new, vastly increased, housing targets.

Decisions being taken in this process decide where housing and industry can be sited and will set the scene for disputes into the 2030s as this plan is likely to be controversial.

Huddersfield Civic Society’s starting point is that, under the current Local Plan, much housing development has taken place away from ‘brownfield’ sites which are typically close to existing local infrastructure.

Instead, much housing development has taken place, and continues to take place, on ‘greenfield’ sites around the urban periphery, typically with no local infrastructure but allocated for housing on the current plan. While many town centre and brownfield sites continue to be under-used, such housing developments have led to a rapid increase in car use as the occupants of such housing use their vehicles for most journeys to school, work, shops and leisure. 

Accordingly, Huddersfield Civic Society asks that a priority for the new Local Plan is that it uses methods that really do prioritise new housing units in existing built-up areas, whether by conversion, reuse or new build, especially on existing ‘brownfield’ sites. We note supportive guidance by organisations such as Historic England:  https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/planning/housing/heritage-works-for-housing/

We also note that authorities elsewhere, such as in Greater Manchester, look to be more successful in this approach.

We ask that indicative housing numbers for brownfield sites are increased to reflect the actuality of possible development. 

At Huddersfield Civic Society’s meeting on January 15 with Johanna Scrutton, the lead on the Kirklees Council team producing the new Local Plan, HCS discussed the case of the Trinity West site beside Huddersfield ring road.

This is site MXS4 on the local plan with 45 indicative dwellings. However, as per planning application 2018/92647, it now has outline permission for 229 residential units which is 409% more housing units than in the current Local Plan. 

The former Huddersfield Infirmary is pictured at the top of the story which has planning permission for 32 apartments.

The Society requests that the next local plan allocates correspondingly higher indicative dwelling numbers to brownfield sites, whether or not they have an indicative housing number in the current Local Plan, and that housing is instead allocated against brownfield sites as a higher priority than housing on greenfield sites.

If the new Local Plan fails to do this then we suggest that, among other results, Kirklees Council will fail to meet its Climate Emergency objectives.

Huddersfield Civic Society looks forward to working with the Local Plan team on the subsequent stages of developing the next Local Plan.