1,000 new houses could be built on land surrounding Silsden Primary School campus

Up to 1,000 new houses could be built on land surrounding the proposed replacement for Silsden Primary School campus, says Bradford Council.

The council’s planning application for the new school building claims that a company is considering building the housing development on nearby fields.

The massive new estate could stretch from Bolton Road to the north of Silsden towards the Howden Road side of the town, bordered at the top by Hawber Lane.

Bradford councillors representing Craven ward – which includes Silsden – are warning that such a development would make it essential to build the town’s long-awaited bypass.

For many years a corridor running along the eastern side of Silsden has been earmarked for a potential bypass, linking Bolton Road with Keighley Road and avoiding the congested town centre.

Similarly, Bradford Council strategic development plans over the past couple of decades have accepted that fields between the bypass route and existing housing estates could be suitable for new housing

This would help Silsden meet its council-imposed target of 1,200 new homes over the next 15 years.

The planning application for the new Silsden Primary School states that “parties” have sought pre-application advice from the council about a large housing development to the immediate north-east of the proposed school site.

The two teams have met several times over the past year to try to integrate their plans so that the same road network could serve both developments.

A separate part of the planning application states: “Land to the north, east and south-east is greenbelt designated as safeguarding land in the development plan and is the subject of a major housing development potentially 1,000 new homes, we are led to understand.”

District councillors Adrian Naylor and Andrew Mallinson said they had heard nothing about plans by a single developer to build 1,000 houses, but both strongly believe the entire area will be developed in the next few years.

 

Cllr Mallinson said: “The whole principle of putting a school there is to encourage developers to develop land around the site. The council intends a huge amount of growth to take place.

“There are developers sniffing around for a quick win. They will talk to landowners, buy the land and sit back to wait for work starts on the school, then we’ll see a host of planning applications.

“Within 15 years there will be more than 1,000 houses in the town. We will lose those green fields.”

Cllr Mallinson believes this would be the ‘tipping point’ for Silsden and force a need for an eastern bypass, but said he had been told it could cost between £10 million and £40 million to build.

Fellow district councillor Adrian Naylor said landowners to the north and east of the school site were hoping to sell their land to developers.

He said: “What we’ll see is a whole patchwork of landowners applying for planning permission and waiting for a developer to come along and put something up.”

Cllr Naylor said Bradford Council hoped each developer would pay for the section of bypass running past its development.

He said the only other source of funding would be the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, but its road plans for the next 10 to 15 years did not include a Silsden bypass.