Following on from the SAP Consultation in Autumn 2015,  Leeds City Council have replied in general to public responses viewable here and made some changes – we will not however say that they are necessarily relevant.   LCC are now in the process of having three Development Plan Panel meetings (14th June, 28th June and 19th July) to progress the SAP to the next stages.

The Aireborough revised plan was discussed at the 28th June meeting and passed to the next stage.  (Papers here – changes are in appendix 1 and 2.)

Discussions on areas such as Green Belt Review, scale and distribution of growth, housing requirements are to be discussed at Development Plan Panel on 19th July.

It appears that 46,000 responses to specific points were made;  41,000 attributable to housing market character areas.  Aireborough had the second highest level of responses  7,547 or 18%,  the highest was Outer North West which includes Bramhope and Otley which was 33%  and the third highest was Leeds North  15%  which includes Horsforth and Cookridge.

Overall,  Aireborough’s housing target has to date been reduced from 2,300 to 2,139.   There are changes to boundaries, buffer zones,  Green Belt assessments, heritage asset conditions, sustainability assessments.    The detail of which is contained in papers that have not get been released, but the general changes are in the above papers.

One site on Coach Road has been removed and another added in.   And two housing development sites have been added in at the LCC Depot on Henshaw Lane and Old Dog Mill.

We need to all now scrutinise these changes and check for the evidence behind them.   There are various groups for each site who will do much of that,  but we would be interested in having the views of all members of the public.  Please email us on aireboroughnp@gmail.com with your thoughts.

We understand that there will be some further consultation by LCC on the changes in the Autumn, prior to the acceptance of the Plan as Sound, and it then being sent to the Secretary of State for Inspection.  This is expected to happen around December 2016.