IT may come as a surprise to some constituents that there has been a consultation on Bradford Council’s draft Local Plan, which details the district’s proposed housing strategy for the next 15-year period from 2023.

Usually the council would widely publicise such a consultation, which will have a long-lasting impact on our local area.

Local events would be held across the district so residents can scrutinise the plans in person and in the presence of a planning expert.

Unfortunately, this sort of physical event has been unable to take place. The consultation has therefore taken place solely online over a short six-week period.

The council should have gone above and beyond to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute over a much longer period of time.

Residents have contacted me expressing their frustration at the difficultly of navigating the local authority’s website, and that the Local Plan section is very difficult to use – with it not being clear on how to submit comments or make objections.

This is why a proper consultation process should have been followed, even if it meant extending the consultation period or re-scheduling it until a more appropriate date – after all, the Government has set a deadline of 2023 for the Local Plan to be finalised. Both Conservative district councillors and I called on the council to extend this process. Our calls were rejected.

The main area of concern for many who have contacted me about this is the number of houses in the Wharfe, Aire and Worth valleys which are earmarked to be built on green belt land.

This equates to around 2,000 extra houses which are proposed to be built on specially-designated protected land.

Building on green belt land is against Government policy. The aim of this green belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. The Government’s policy on protection for the green belt is set out in chapter 13 of the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF).

It clearly states the importance of green belt land and emphasises that when protecting the green belt, local authorities should maximise the use of suitable brownfield sites before considering changes to green belt boundaries.

The NPPF demands that there should be “exceptional circumstances” before green belt boundaries can be changed and states that inappropriate development which is harmful to the green belt should be approved only in “very special circumstances”.

With this in mind, I do not believe Bradford Council has provided within its consultation documents sufficient justification which provides “exceptional circumstances” for why these green belt sites should be considered or detailed what the “very special circumstances” are for releasing these sites from green belt protection.

Brownfield development must always be prioritised. I fear that this seems not to have been done in the proposals which have been presented to us by Bradford Council, and they only gave us the minimum amount of time to comment.

The failure to hold a meaningful consultation will be remembered and future generations will not forgive the demolition of our precious green belt.