Potential housing site allocation plan – Aireborough

The Leeds’s Site Allocation Development Plan Document (DPD), is due to take another step forward this month.   Following on from the announcement on development phasing in May, report here,  the June meeting of the Development Plan Panel will discuss their preferred sites for housing, green space (eg allotments, parks, sports fields), retail and employment: once agreed these will go to Executive Board for approval in July.  Following this, a public consultation on the DPD will be announced, which is likely to take place in early Autumn 2015.   The step after that will be submittal to the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), who will then arrange for an Inspector to look at the plans for compliance with the NPPF and NPPG.

The dates of the June Development Plan Panel meetings are as follows, both will be in the Civic Hall and the public can attend.

16th June. 1.30pm  for – green space (eg parks, alloments, sports grounds), retail and employment  (papers here)

26th June 10am  for – housing   (this was to be held on the 16th June, but the date has been changed)

One key change to note is that the Chair of Development Plan Panel has changed, and Cllr David Congreve has now replaced Cllr Neil Walshaw.   Cllr Congreve was Leeds Lord Mayor in 2014/15.   Another key change is that Cllr Richard Lewis, has now replaced Cllr Peter Gruen as the Executive Board member in charge of Planning.   Cllr Gruen is no long a member of Executive Board.

This is obviously a crucial time for Aireborough’s future, and for the Neighbourhood  Development Plan.   Therefore, amongst other things The Aireborough Neighbourhood Development Forum has been working hard in conjunction with a number of members and local people to produce our own ANDF Site Sustainability Assessments and Green Belt Purpose Reviews for all potential housing sites which are ‘muddy brown’ on the current potential site allocation plan (the one pictured above),  or PAS sites.   We have not had time to work on the sites coloured ‘pink’.

These assessments are in line with Leeds own methodology for site sustainability and green belt purpose, and,  after the Forum held discussions with Leeds Forward Planning, Officers said they would look at the ANDF reports in comparison to the Council’s own assessments prior to the Development Plan Panel on the 26th June.    Leeds are now in possession of the ANDF reports.

The various site reports  can be found below, and we will be improving on these over the summer, to produce final site reports that can be submitted to both the public consultation in the Autumn, and the Inspector’s Hearing.   If there is anyone, who would like to help improve these evidence based reports – eg with specialised information, or because evidence has been missed, please email aireboroughnp@gmail.com.  Much of the information used in the reports can be found in our Neighbourhood Plan Evidence Base which we are building in our training and reference section above.

Potential Housing Site 1255b Banksfield/Coppice Wood – Darren Sanderson

You will also see that many of the ANDF site reports have photographs by Darren Sanderson.  Darren is a professional photographer from Rawdon, who has given his time to the Aireborough Neighbourhood Development Forum to help capture the Landscape Characteristics of Aireborough, and particularly of the site allocations.  We will do another post specifically on this project and link to Darren’s Aireborough Gallery. However, here is one of his photographs of Banksfield/Coppice Wood. Darren’s website is here.

Watson Batty have provided a lot of the mapping of evidence for the reports, in conjunction with ANDF members who have invaluable expertise in data mapping for planning.

Thanks go to everyone who has worked so hard on phase 1 of this project.

ANDF Site Sustainability Assessment Reports – can be found under the tab Aireborough Site Allocation (top right of this page)

Banksfield/Coppice Wood 1255B

Wills Gill 3029

Ings Lane 3026

Ings Lane 4043

Hollins Hill 4020

Coach Road 1131, 1180, 2163

Silverdale Allotments 1113

Low Mills (still in production)

Nether Yeadon 1221

Rawdon (all)