LABOUR’S shadow Secretary of State for Housing has written to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid to demand an explanation for the government’s decision to put Bradford’s Local Plan on hold.

The Core Strategy of the Bradford Local Plan was approved by the government’s planning inspector and was ready to be formally adopted by Bradford Council’s Executive last week.

But adoption of the plan was thwarted when housing and planning minister Gavin Barwell MP wrote to the Council to say it cannot currently be adopted because Menston and Burley-in-Wharfedale MP Philip Davies requested the Secretary of State to intervene due to concerns about the plan, including the release of greenbelt land for housing.

In his letter to Sajid Javid, John Healey said: “Given this lack of justification for your department stopping a plan which has been nine years in the making, and involved extensive consultation with local people, I am writing to ask you to account for this decision.”

Councillor Alex Ross-Shaw, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Regeneration, Planning and Transport, said: “We’ve taken up our case with Labour’s Shadow Ministerial team to raise this at the highest levels of government because when we said we weren’t going to take this lying down, we meant it.

“It’s an outrageous action by Philip Davies to try and undermine local decision-making with centralised powers. And it’s incredible that this has happened immediately after Sajid Javid said so clearly to his party conference that the government has a responsibility to the next generation to build more houses.

“We’re calling on the government to withdraw its holding direction immediately and let us adopt our approved Core Strategy, so that we have the right policies for suitable development to benefit the Bradford District in the years to come.

“Our Plan protects 98 per cent of greenbelt land, it prioritises brownfield development, it gets empty homes back into use and it provides certainty to our partners to provide the infrastructure people will need to support new housing. It’s very sad that the MP for one area has decided to put all that at risk across the whole District. Our Plan is the right plan and we’ll fight to get it adopted.”

Mr Davies said: “This complaint from the Labour Party shows they have no concern for my constituents and the Green Belt around the constituency. There is a significant amount of brownfield sites that Bradford Council seems to want to ignore and not build on, instead giving the go-ahead to massive developments in my constituency.

“My constituents now know that the Labour Party locally and the Labour Party nationally do not care about their interests and are happy to see huge swathes of Greenbelt concreted over against the wishes of local residents.

“I hope people in the Shipley constituency remember the contempt the Labour Party holds for them at future elections.”