I AM really saddened by the application for the East of Otley development.

In my opinion the development is far too big. 700 new homes!! Why so many??

I don’t live in Otley, but from our village of Leathley we will for the first time start seeing a sprawl of houses on the other side of the valley. Wharfedale was always the greenest of valleys, a true rural Yorkshire country dale.

It is tragic to lose such a large green space.

What green spaces have been preserved / proposed within this appalling urban development? Very few, I imagine. Why could brown field sites not have been used?

How can a town like Otley support this development? – its character as a small market town is threatened.

I have expressed my objection on the planning portal in the strongest possible terms.

Alistair Wood,

Leathley