Bye bye countryside

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Thu 06 Dec, 2012 8:24 pm

Leodian wrote: Regarding proposed planning developments in East Leeds this link to a report in the YEP website may be of interest (the topic is also on page 21 of today's YEP). http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... -1-5199205 Full article:Residents are being urged to have their say on a number of major planning developments in east Leeds.The East Leeds Extension includes plans for more than 5,000 new homes, leisure and office facilities plus a new supermarket. Changes include plans for the ‘Northern Quadrant’, a development between the A58 Wetherby Road and A64 York Road, which could see 2,000 new homes and important infrastructure. An outline planning application was submitted in June and is currently being assessed.Plus there will be new homes on land where the former Vickers Tank factory was, where work by Bellway Homes has already started on 122 homes. There could be 600 further homes if planning permission is granted.These and other proposals have come forward separately from developers and landowners and are currently being looked at Leeds City Council bosses. Local ward Councillors say that a co-ordinated approach to the plans will allow the impact on traffic, public transport, schools and health facilities to be looked at across the whole area. Development of the whole East Leeds Extension is expected to take 15-20 years.The public is invited to an event on Monday from 4-7pm at Fieldhead Carr Primary School to discuss these plans. Councillors and Council officers will be available to speak to people through the event in order to respond to any questions and comments. There will be displays showing the details of the plans. The event is open so that people can arrive and leave at any time.Coun Pauleen Grahame (Labour, Crossgates and Whinmoor) said: “It is really important we work with and listen to local residents on these developments. I want the developers to realise how important this process is.”Coun Peter Gruen (Labour, Crossgates and Whinmoor) added: “Active consultation with the public will be central to the successful development of this area.”The council will provide public meetings and regular updates on the plans.Worrying times indeed, but there is a lot of money to be made here, so big business will have it's way no doubt.We took a lovely walk through some of the area that is going to be lost forever under a sea of concrete with these plans - glorious rolling agricultural land and greenbelt that offers stunning views as far as Ferrybridge and Hartshead Moor as well as a green space for residents of the existing estates to exercise and enjoy.Pics here: http://snipurl.com/25sr1ji

Dixie · Post by **Dixie** » Thu 06 Dec, 2012 10:03 pm

There are thousands of acres of derelict land and buildings in Leeds and I have compaigned constantly to the council to use these instead of green belt. They say builders will not use them because nobody would want to live there so they have a policy of releasing green belt regularly. I am currently trying to get them to compel builders on green belt to have the liability of regenerating a derelict area into parks and open spaces as a condition of planning permission but it needs more people to make demands to their councillors. Complaining to each other is no good - you must get complain to the council. You have the right to attend and speak at planning meetings. Get a group together and fight!

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Thu 10 Jan, 2013 9:25 pm

After much speculation, the council have finally made their proposals public...http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... 1-5297245A new £100m ring road in east Leeds would provide “critical” infrastructure support for a hoped-for housing boom in the area.Leeds City Council is set to undertake a major study to examine the viability of a new East Leeds Orbital Road (ELOR).It would form part of plans for the long-mooted East Leeds Extension (ELE) which could see up to 7,000 new homes built.The new orbital road would stretch from the Outer Ring Road at Red Hall, round the east side of Leeds, to Thorpe Park, joining a new Manston Lane link road, where it would connect with existing highways.The idea is to provide the roads support necessary to accommodate the scale of the development.The council’s decision-making executive board yesterday rubber-stamped approval for £150,000 funding for an initial feasibility study.A report presented to the panel said the ELOR would “effectively become a new 4.3 mile route to provide the capacity to support all allocated and approved development in the ELE and to relieve congestion on the existing network”.“The East Leeds Extension is critical to the delivery of Leeds’s housing growth needs over the coming years,” the report added.“It has potential to deliver a significant number of new homes and associated facilities.“However, this is subject to the provision of critical infrastructure in the form of the East Leeds Orbital Road and appropriate social and community infrastructure such as schools, health and green spaces.“The road and related development must be delivered in a sustainable and co-ordinated manner.”The report said a “broad estimate” cost of £100m had been drawn up for the construction of the road, but added this was subject to the feasibility study.It stressed the ELOR currently has “no defined route or design” and that talks with landowners and developers would bring “clarity” on this.The initial East Leeds Extension (ELE) proposals were drawn up as part of a wider development plan in 2006.It identified a major 560-acre area to the east of the city which would eventually incorporate housing, employment and green space uses.The new orbital road would include new public transport connections on the route, including park and ride.No-one wants this road apart from the developers who are looking to get even richer with lots of expensive "executive" homes (there will be no genuinely affordable homes here), which if built will totally swamp the only practical route into the city, down York Road - something this new road won't address at all.Developers won't build on existing brownfield sites as they can't charge as much for the houses, so they make less profit - so they abuse planning processes to steamroller this sort of unwanted monstrosity through. It will also mean the end of Thorner, Scholes and Barwick as villages as they will be absorbed into the Leeds conurbation, but without the infrastructure to cope.It will be a nightmare with a floodlit busy dual carriageway passing within yards of peoples homes 24/7 - the comment about there being no planned route is disingenuous at best - search on line and there are already plans showing the proposed route, which follows the obvious topography of the land.As for plans to incorporate "green space uses", it already does that now - it's called the countryside!

Cardiarms · Post by **Cardiarms** » Thu 10 Jan, 2013 9:35 pm

You can have a trolley bus, it cures everything.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Thu 10 Jan, 2013 9:52 pm

Cardiarms wrote: You can have a trolley bus, it cures everything. The irony isn't lost on me Cardi - not least that the eastern arm of the Supertram was meant to terminate at a Park and Ride site just off York Road...

guitar man · Post by **guitar man** » Fri 11 Jan, 2013 12:01 am

There was a plan to have a Park and Ride scheme using the old rail line from Wetherby to Crossgates from the A64 but nothing came of that

Phill_dvsn · Post by **Phill_dvsn** » Fri 11 Jan, 2013 12:10 am

guitar man wrote: There was a plan to have a Park and Ride scheme using the old rail line from Wetherby to Crossgates from the A64 but nothing came of that They're good at coming up with these 'plans'They do have to at least look like they are doing something to justify they're over inflated wages. It's all pretense and hot air, nothing ever comes of it.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Sun 16 Jun, 2013 5:33 pm

Earlier in this thread, I mentioned the stalled development on South Parkway - a nearby 'brown field' development that had stalled and been the result of a substantial financial bail out from the council to get partially restarted.Driving past the cleared bulk of this site on Friday, I was surprised to see that the whole section from Kentmere Avenue down to the roundabout at Foundry Mill Drive (which was cleared with some haste when the project was announced) is now up for sale as a "Residential Redevelopment Opportunity"!Has the developer, having had a handout from the council, simply walked away from the rest of the site despite all the plans / promises for affordable homes? Is it the case that this cleared and ready to start work on site - with utilities in situ, good access and an abundance of public transport right on the doorstep can simply be abandoned whilst developers rip up green fields to build more houses just a mile or so away?Lets not forget that the same developer who appears to have called it a day on South Parkway is currently engaged on building lots of more expensive houses on the former Barnbow site at Cross Gates...

Jogon · Post by **Jogon** » Tue 18 Jun, 2013 2:13 pm

this sort of ought to be in here http://www.secretleeds.com/forum/Messag ... ID=4826for it's maps and consultation deadlines

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Thu 19 Sep, 2013 8:43 pm

Looks like the council are set to rubber stamp the plans for the massive expansion of Thorpe Park, despite massive local objection and it flying against virtually every policy they've got.http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/n ... -6058377Of course, it will mean that the council get the Manston Lane Link Road (MLLR) which is all they seem bothered about. Meanwhile we get a Sainsburys that will reported dwarf the Tesco Extra at Seacroft and another Junction 27 (Birstall) retail park dumped on us, with appalling access from the motorway (traffic heading north on the M1 to the site will have to exit onto the current Colton Roundabout, cross Selby Road and then travel down the elongated slip road on other side) unless the road layout is massively and expensively altered.Anyone who has ever been to Jct27 will know the nightmare roads that surround it and will be hoping that the road layout is properly sorted BEFORE any work startsIt's also disappointing, although not unexpected, that the YEP appears to have simply swallowed the developers PR spiel hook line and sinker (reading the report one suspects a large degree of cutting and pasting has also gone on....). No awkward questions or challenges from the ivory tower on Whitehall Road. More here too: http://theleedscitizen.wordpress.com/20 ... morrow/Who at least have the decency to try and balance their article with these words...Thorpe Park is out of town, and national and local planning policies say that significant retail development should be focused on town and city centres and not draw punters away from them. (for ‘town’ in this case read Garforth, Cross Gates, Seacroft etc)For two, among those objecting to the plans are the Crown Point and Colton retail parks, plus developers Hammerson, who are set to build the new Victoria Gate shopping complex in Leeds city centre, and John Lewis, the anchor store at Victoria Gate.Looking around Leeds, we seem to have a surfeit of empty retail space, so surely any stores moving here will only be displaced from elsewhere (much like Trinity)?