‘Leave us alone’ say campaigners and residents fighting against 37-home development plans on greenfields in Batley
Campaigners and residents are rallying together in Batley to fight against a proposed housing development.
Plans to build 37 homes on a greenfield plot off White Lee Road, to the west of Batley town centre, were lodged with Kirklees Council earlier this month by Jones Homes and M62 Developments.
Around 2018, the 2.5-hectare site was designated as urban green space, while the new development, according to the plans, would be accessible via White Lee Gardens, another housing development built by the same applicants.
But local residents and campaign group Save White Lee Field, set up nearly ten years ago to stop 200 houses being built on another local greenfield, have insisted that “enough is enough.”
Clare Naughton, of Save White Lee Field, said: “People are just fed up. It is our last piece of green space. We just want the field protected.
“They have built previously on the other greenfield sites around here and it is now an urban sprawl. It is not conducive for the local community, the infrastructure is not there, the traffic’s really bad as it is, and it is like a race track on White Lee Road in spite of traffic calming measures introduced.
“More than anything, especially in this day and age since the pandemic, it is really important to have these green spaces where people can just go and relax.
“Enough is enough. It is a continuous assault on the last bits of nature that we have, so we need to keep fighting for this area.”
As of Monday (March 2), 37 comments had been provided in response to the planning application on the Kirklees website. All are objections.
Asked what message she would have to the developers, Clare replied:
“Leave us alone and stop the constant onslaught. Leave our fields alone.
“At some point in life, we might all have to make some allowances for housing but we’re definitely not at that stage now. It is just lazy, cheap and easy to ruin the fields.”
A range of detached and semi-detached homes are proposed, with the applicant stating this mixture had been “carefully considered within the context of local market needs.”
Proposals include each home having a minimum of two parking spaces, as well as a private garden.
A spokesperson for Jones Homes said: “We have carefully designed our proposals for the site off White Lee Road in Batley to minimise the impact of the development on the existing community and urban greenspace while delivering much-needed housing, including nine affordable homes for local people.
“The site is neighboured by existing residential development to the north, east and west and is not currently accessible to the public. Our proposals would provide a substantial amount of new usable public open space spanning 2.9 acres, which exceeds the council’s policy requirement for a site of this size, and which is designed to ensure inclusive access for all.
“This green space would include a kickabout area for informal recreation, an attenuation pond with timber viewing platform, and new landscaping, hedgerows and buffer planting, with the potential for allotments and a community orchard. There would be new footpaths alongside improvements to the surfacing of the existing footpath to the south.
“The development would therefore bring substantial benefits for the existing community, helping to meet the acute shortfall of housing in Kirklees, and opening up a significant area of green space for community use.”
The public consultation period for people to have their say ends on Thursday, March 12.