Calderdale planning applications: 'Unhappy' councillors approve new Calderdale homes despite residents' objections

Calderdale Council’s planning committee approved controversial plans to build the houses on land next to Bright Street, Sowerby Bridge.

Seventeen letters of objection had been received, and residents and a ward councillor spoke against against James Dunning’s proposals.

Councillors were also concerned as to whether a previous planning application for three homes on the site, from 2018, was still extant or not.

But ultimately, whether that application was “live” or not, the previous approval had established precedent for three homes to be built there, they were told.

Councillors were concerned about some aspects of the application, including a pumping system needed to pump foul water uphill, which committee Chair Coun Colin Hutchinson (Lab, Skircoat) said “seems to be a hostage to fortune.”

Planning officers said flood risk colleagues had looked at the scheme and believed it was adequate and other properties were in the same position.

Objectors were worried about aspects including the steep topography, drainage, impact on the environment and disruption development would cause to residents.

One asked who would repair damage contractor vehicles might do to what was a single track, unadopted road.

Coun Adam Wilkinson (Lab, Sowerby Bridge), objecting to the plans, said access to the site was via a very poorly maintained road.

“To call it a road is pushing it, it is more of a track,” he said.

An alternative proposal to build four homes there was rejected by planning councillors in 2022 and Coun Wilkinson said overdevelopment had been one of the reasons.

But an agent of the applicant pointed out that was for four homes and a three-home plan had previously been approved.

Councillors heard the new plans were basically a resubmission of the 2018 scheme to overcome issues relating to the discharge of conditions for the latter because work had not begun on it.

But officers said, in essence, the prior application had established the principle of building three homes on the site and so refusing it would have to have good reasons this time around for an almost identical plan.

With that in mind, councillors agreed to officers’ recommendation that the scheme be permitted.