Numerous discharge conditions from previous permissions 2017/91916 and 2014/93014 to build 41 dwellings within a conservation area at Clayton Fields on Edgerton Road, Edgerton.

Application from Jones Homes (Yorkshire) and the numbers are 2025/90372 and 90373 (click on link to see full application).

This response is on behalf of Huddersfield Civic Society

The Society objects to the request to discharge Condition 5, regarding the Tree Arboricultural Survey and Method Statement, and Condition 9 regarding a proposed ‘Woodland Walk’.

The Society notes that several rights of way (including HUD/477/10 and HUD/477/20) were confirmed by an Inspector appointed by the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs on February 17, 2020.

These were subsequently added by Kirklees Council and appear on the current online Kirklees Council map of Rights of Way available today.

We do not believe that any subsequent attempt to close these paths (or to create another new path nearby along sloping woodland) can be valid as, along with nearby residents, we can find no evidence that such intentions were ever advertised locally as is legally required.

Also, we do not agree with the plan to create a new woodland walk as this would require felling of trees and creation of a, presumably level, path along a sloping valley side, causing damage to this beautiful strip of woodland and to its diversity.

We can see no evidence of how such a path would be appropriate as a safe route to school in place of 477/10 and 477/20. We also see no evidence as to the legal status of this proposed path or how, or who by, it would subsequently be maintained.

We are puzzled as to the perceived need to extinguish 477/10 and 477/20 as our reading of the approved house plans, and of numbered site markers now visible on the ground, suggests that their route follows along open ground that will remaining between the wooded beck and the line of houses after they have been built.

Accordingly, we ask that the discharge requests be rejected and that Kirklees Council confirms the continuing existence of paths it lawfully created in 2020.