Controversial housing scheme makes changes to be '100 per cent affordable'

Calderdale planning councillors will consider final design proposals for 26 new homes at a Brighouse site – plans which have received more than 70 letters of objection.

Holcombe’s application seeks to confirm approval to develop 22 houses and four flats on land totalling around half a hectare off Bowling Alley.

The scheme already has outline approval with this application filling in conditional detail.

Planning officers are recommending the proposals be approved, subject to a legal agreement, when the council’s Planning Committee meets at Halifax Town Hall next Tuesday, July 30.

The proposals are controversial – 78 representations were made to the council over the application, one general comment and 77 objections.

Concerns expressed include the quality and design of the proposed homes, that development would change the character of the area, scale of development disproportionate to its surroundings, car parking and concerns over privacy.

However, officers say many of these matters were dealt with at the outline approval stage and are settled.

In terms of the quality and design, planning officers say proposals meet the council’s, and national, planning criteria and consider a reduction in the scale of the proposed dwellings in this application as opposed to designs originally approved betters the scheme in terms of the balance of the site’s layout and visual amenity.

They also say the applicant’s proposals to uplift from ten per cent to 100 per cent the number of the homes defined as “affordable” – 17 affordable rent and nine shared ownership dwellings – would be a public benefit.

The Section 106 “deed of variation” legal agreement officers are requesting will secure this, if councillors give their approval.

Rastrick councillors have requested the committee considers the application, with Coun Peter Judge (Lab) calling on the committee councillors to make a site visit and Coun Regan Dickenson (Con) being concerned about flooding issues, traffic flow and ability of infrastructure to cope with the new homes, arguing “Rastrick ward has some of the most concentrated housing density in Calderdale, and this application will concentrate that density further.”