CROMWELL WOOD ESTATE COMPANY LIMITED Butterfield House T/A Cromwell Mining Consultants 59 Oakenshaw Lane Mining Engineers and Development Consultants Walton Wakefield Tel/Fax: 01924 255666 WF2 6NJ Mobile: 07739256461 E-mail: [email protected]

Our Ref: JC/ZEC/St Giles Road – Crows Nest

26th September 2018

Calderdale Council Town Hall Halifax HX1

Dear Planning Team

St Giles Road – Crows Nest Park Housing Allocation in Lighcliffe.

I am writing on behalf of my client, Messrs Gibson who own the land to the north of Crows Nest Quarry and was submitted a parcel LP1072 for land to the south of St Giles Road. The land is currently rough undulating land that was a former sandstone quarry, a field to the west which is currently used to train dogs and abuts the boundary of the stone dressing yard on St Giles Road and the football pitch to the south of the access road to Crows Nest Quarry.

The land has been taken out of the land allocated for housing due to issues with traffic generation and the bottleneck at Hipperholme Crossroads on the A644. Two other sites have been left in the allocation which would impinge on the cross roads when they are built on and completed. Housing development has been completed on Harley Head Avenue off Spout House Lane / St Giles Road between 2013 and 2016 that was considered not to add more traffic than provided for in the Government’s own assessment of traffic growth.

Further planning permissions have been granted for housing in the area. The land to the south west that is now a stone dressing yard and has reference number LP1075, and being used for a lorry park and a garage area that is currently being remediated was granted planning permission for 30 houses under decision number 11/00644/OUT and has detailed planning for 10 houses under planning permission 14/01479, outline planning permission under 15/01582/OUT and 16/00204/OUT. There is also a certificate of lawful use for residential use for an existing bungalow with planning reference 18/00067/191.

The above approved development is not shown on the Local Plan Publication 2018 Map in the land shown as the Stoneworks nor is the new Harley Head Avenue housing estate to the east of Hipperholme Concrete Works now Deco-Pak which is misleading on the map as it should show development already permitted and in some cases built out.

The owners of the land at Gaubert and Park Quarries Messr’s Gibson have considered the LDF and associated maps and believe that the plan should be updated to reflect the recent changes to housing policies in England with the publication of the revised NPPF on the 24th July 2018 and the updated housing requirements revised in September 2018. They believe the site LP1072 should be re- examined and included in the housing allocation land for Calderdale based on a number of facts that are discussed below.

The site LP1072 is a former sandstone quarry that was known as Giles and Gaubert Quarries and worked from 1875 until 1907 when the OS map show the quarries being filled with overburden and waste. A lot of the waste is from the Silex Works of Brookes Limited as their works were located at what is now DecoPak but was Hipperhome concrete works. The site was continued to be tipped into from Silex Works and Crows Nest park quarries until 1956. The land is undulating due to the tipping and was never reclaimed and restored. The site is likely to be slightly contaminated with quarry waste and material from Silex such as coal ash.

The site has revegetated in parts and could be levelled to provide a housing site if material is available such as inert construction and excavation waste and mineral waste from two nearby quarries. The woodland could be left on the eastern boundary, refer to the aerial photograph below and the site developed within the red line shown.

The land is within the Mineral Safeguarding Area for Elland Flag sandstone but within there are no stone reserve remaining as the land has been worked by surface means to extract the sandstone for the Silex works and Brookes Limited.

The site has been compared with three other sites in the area which are designated as housing sites and offer the same difficulties in terms of ground conditions. This site has been tipped in with mainly quarry or stone works waste and can be developed in the same manner as the following sites;

LP 0945 Pond Quarry Lightcliffe Road. This site is a quarry with remnant reserves of sandstone in the north east corner of the site. The quarry void is deep with vertical faces and will require filling with good inert compacted engineering fill to the surface. Access to the bottom of the quarry is difficult in regard to the access road gradient until the levels of fill are brought up to 50 percent of the fill. This site could take many years to bring on stream due to the volume of material required to fill the quarry and the removal of the existing Elland Flag in the north east corner.

LP1075 St Giles Road. This site was part of Yew Tree Quarry and Rough Heys Quarry which have been filled in with quarry overburden, ash and fly ash from the local power station. Yew Tree Quarry on the west side of Spout House Lane / St Giles Road has been developed for housing and is now Harley Head Avenue and Sunderland Way. The site to the east of Spout House Lane has been granted planning permission for 30 houses with access off St Giles Road. The site has differing ground conditions which the developer will deal with through piling the foundations and grouting the underground sandstone workings. This was the case for the Harley Head Avenue where Yew Tree Quarry was located.

LP 1053 Squire Hill Quarry is still operational with a small volume of building stone and reserves of aggregate that could be used in the development. To bring the site to a development platform upto 180,000 cubic metres of engineered fill is required that will take 5 to 7 years to procure when considered with the Pond Quarry Lightcliffe site.

LP1077 Southedge Quarry Brighouse Road is a former commercial land fill site that has been restored for over 25 years and is now green field. The site lends itself to development for housing and other mixed uses but the landfill use constrains the site in relation to housing as the ground conditions will have to be investigated and possibly the housing built on the parts where the land fill was backfilled quarry waste and inert excavation waste which restricts the numbers.

The sites are discussed in policy SD7 and it is noted that the constraints will need to be dealt with in any detailed planning application. These three sites could be years before they come to the point where houses can be built as there is engineering work to carry out on all three. It is estimated that these sites will be available in 10 year time from the publication of the LDF.

LP1072 on St Giles Road outlined with a red line as shown on the aerial photograph above could be made ready within 2 years of being allocated in the LDF and a detailed planning application submitted. The ground conditions are back filled quarry waste that has been stable for over 50 years and with some levelling off and material from surrounding quarries to level the site up, leaving the woodland to the east and south could be phased in over a period of 5 years whilst the other quarry sites that have been allocated are brought to development. This site is the only remaining piece of land within Hove Edge that could be developed within the next 5 years.

The attributes for the allocated housing sites can be considered to apply to this site.

The site would comply with policy SD2 on sustainability as it would be using former brownfield land that has been partially restored but not remediated to provide housing land within the village of Hove Edge and Lightcliffe. The site has good communications with public transport, the road network. It is likely that people who live in Hove Edge and Lighcliffe will work in Brighouse, Huddersfield, Leeds or Bradford and the road network is acceptable for these destinations. It is acknowledged that Hipperholme Crossroads present a bottleneck to traffic travelling to Halifax but there are other routes from the area. Two railway stations provide travel to places further afield located Brighouse and Halifax.

The site is currently allocated within the green belt but the Stoneworks Land has been granted planning permission as it is a brownfield site within the Green Belt and was a former employment site. The green belt between Hove Edge and Lightcliffe is mainly taken up by Crows Nest Park golf club. The proposal does not impinge upon the open space of the golf club or the allocated mineral site and will form a ribbon development alongside St Giles Road, Ivy Crescent and Ivy Terrace.

The owner has considered the policies on housing within the draft LDF and HS1 and could be brought forward as a non allocated housing site if it was not allocated in the Green Belt to the rear of residential development.

In a recent review of Crows Nest Quarry under Schedule 14 of the Environment Act 1995 there was considerable opposition from the local population to a quarry reopening for building stone and generally the residents do not want any further quarrying in the area and complain about the three quarries and stone works in Hove Edge. The residents would like to see some of the land safeguarded for mineral extraction to be allocated for housing so that there are only small extensions to Crows Nest Quarry for stone that has not been worked out in the past.

The site can comply with policy HS2 in relation to density to provide more affordable homes as the area has been developed at Harley Head Avenue with three and four bedroomed detached, the proposals for St Giles Road is for 30 four bedroom detached houses and the real need is for housing to accommodate people who require the same as in the Lightcliffe and Hipperholme area where there are two and three bedroomed terrace properties.

Considering the recently revised NPPF, published on the 24th July 2018 the policies concentrate on building houses and providing for a plan led system for development within a Council area. The Local Development Framework Plan has been drafted over a period of 5 years and the latest edition may have taken into account the draft NPPF document published in March 2018 but policy was within NPPF 2012 until the 24th July 2018.

In the introduction to the NPPF 2018 paragraph 2 states that the document must be taken into account when preparing the local plan. The NPPF has the thread of sustainability throughout the document and the planning system has three overarching objectives which are;

 to help build a strong, responsive and competitive economy, by ensuring that sufficient land of the right types is available in the right places and at the right time to support growth, innovation and improved productivity; and by identifying and coordinating the provision of infrastructure,

 to support strong, vibrant and healthy communities, by ensuring that a sufficient number and range of homes can be provided to meet the needs of present and future generations; and by fostering a well-designed and safe built environment, with accessible services and open spaces that reflect current and future needs and support communities’ health, social and cultural well-being; and

 to contribute to protecting and enhancing our natural, built and historic environment; including making effective use of land, helping to improve biodiversity, using natural resources prudently, minimising waste and pollution, and mitigating and adapting to climate change, including moving to a low carbon economy.

There is a presumption in favour of sustainable development within the NPPF in paragraph 11 and for plan making that means plans should positively seek opportunities to meet the development needs of their area, and be sufficiently flexible to adapt to rapid change.

Paragraph 31 of the NPPF says that the preparation and review of all policies should be underpinned by relevant and up-to-date evidence. This should be adequate and proportionate, focused tightly on supporting and justifying the policies concerned, and take into account relevant market signals.

Chapter 5 of the NPPF relates to the supply of housing and paragraph 67 places a duty on the Local Authority to identify land for housing within their area for the SHLAA and sites that are likely to be developed in 5 years, 6 to10 years and 11 to 15 years in the plan.

The five years supply of housing should be updated on an annual basis to reflect the 5 year supply and promote different types and size of site to meet demand.

The site is near to local communities, transport links and open space to promote healthy life styles and work, rest balance.

Chapter 11 discusses the effective use of land and strategic policies within a local plan to use previously developed land or brownfield land for new housing or other development.

Paragraph 118 c advises the LPA to give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land within settlements for homes and other identified needs, and support appropriate opportunities to remediate despoiled, degraded, derelict, contaminated or unstable land.

Considering the policies on land use and housing provision the site at St Giles Road and Gaubert Quarry is acceptable in terms of using despoiled land to provide housing which is near to local communities, transport links and open space.

The site is currently allocated in the Green Belt on the Local Map so for the site to be included in the Local Plan it would require the land being taken out of the Green Belt or special circumstances being shown in any planning application. The land was previously built on as there was Gaubert Hall before the land was quarried for Elland Flag Stone and since the site was backfilled and the railway lines and roads removed in 1969 the site has become vegetated on the boundaries and grazed within the land. The main Green Belt area is the golf course and the quarry area at Crow’s Nest neither of which will conflict with Green Belt policies.

This parcel of land is on the edge of the Green Belt and connects the development at the former Stoneworks on St Giles Road discussed in the second paragraph above and the houses on Ivy Terrace and along the road. It is brownfield land that has been previously developed and left despoiled from tipping quarry waste. The ground conditions on the site based on the investigation by the owners and research by their agent is that the site is developable in the short term subject to some engineering works as it is similar to the conditions on the area granted planning permission for Harley Head Avenue under planning permission 09/01455/OUT.

The plan has been considered for soundness as discussed in the NPPF 2018 in paragraph 35. The plan has been positively prepared and meets the objectives of the Council’s needs in most areas but in relation to housing need the requirement laid out in Paragraph number 60 the housing crisis has worsened since the original call for sites in 2008 and the review in 2015. The soundness of the allocations of land for housing and deliverable has to be reviewed with up to date data and it is clear that the sites allocated in the Southowram and Hipperholme area are difficult sites to prepare being an old landfill site and two quarries that require filling in. These sites would not be included in the 5 year supply SHLAA until years 11 to 15 of the LDF. Further assessment of the LP 1072 site to provide housing in the district over the next 5 years now that the Harley Head scheme has been completed, the housing sites at the Stoneworks LP1075 have been granted and are to be built between 2020 and 2022 and the difficulties in developing the allocated sites in the near future.

The plan is justified with an appropriate strategy but the evidence should be reassessed on sites for housing deliverability in the Brighouse and Hipperholme area based on the revised housing figures provided by Central Government.

In relation to the housing sites discussed in this comment letter it is unlikely that the allocated sites will be deliverable until years 11 to 15 of the plan as there are engineering projects on all sites to complete which depends on material being available in large quantities over the plan period. The evidence should be looked at again based on the housing requirements and being able to deliver. For the Hipperholme area the plan is not now effective.

The plan is consistent overall with the NPPF 2018 but may require some revision due to the emphasis on providing sufficient sites for housing, using previously despoiled or brownfield land and delivery of sustainable solutions to the requirements of the area to meet economic, social and environmental criteria.

The latest housing statistics have been examined and in particular the DCLG Housing Statistical release for 2014 to 2039 where it forecasted there will be a further 5 million homes needed with over 60% of those being either single person accommodation or two people living together. The housing stock will need to cater for older people and single persons together with younger couples wanting to enter the housing market. It is projected that 214,000 houses will be required each year to 2039 as of published data by the ONS in May 2016. The Government has since revised this figure up to 300,000 houses per annum by the mid 2020’s.

From the 2014 projections Calderdale required 17,000 houses from 2014 to 2039 which is a yearly average of 680 per annum plus the affordability requirement that provided an annual build of 950 houses per annum. As the projections were based on 214,000 houses per annum in 2014 and these have been revised by Government to 300,000 per annum in September 2018 then the increase is 40% so the requirement for housing in Calderdale is now 1,330. The allocations have not considered that increase and sites that were rejected such as LP 1072 should be re- examined to provide for housing stock that will be required such as smaller 2 bedroomed properties as a mixture of housing types.

The Council’s own figures assess that 840 houses are required per annum between 2018 and 2032 and there has been consistent under delivery of housing from 2008 which has continued after the recession and in the current housing boom since mid-2014. The last figures for housing completions in 2016 were around 475. The sites allocated in the LDF in the Hove Edge Hipperhome area are unlikely to be developed in the short term due to the engineering requirements discussed in this letter so to be able to react to the changes sites that are easier to develop should be looked at again.

There is also the commitment of the Government announced in September 2018 for a social housing programme of building where there will be a £2 billion fund available from mid-2021 for local authorities to call on. This social housing aspect should be factored into the allocations for housing to provide homes for people on low incomes or wish to rent.

In conclusion the site LP1072 should be allocated for housing in the Hove Edge Area for development within the next 5 years and the other allocated sites remain within the plan as they will take longer to engineer and fill to be ready for housing development. It is estimated that the three allocated sites will be 10 years before they can provide housing in the area.

Yours sincerely

J Carlon

JOHN CARLON Agent for the Gibson Family