Object

Representation ID: 29791

Received: 23/03/2021

Respondent: Ilkley Civic Society

We have been repeatedly reassured that Green Belt is safeguarded against development by government ministers in person, through the national press and television.

A great deal of emphasis is being placed on ‘weak boundaries’ to green belt. This term is meaningless and barely relevant. The boundaries are not weak. They have lasted for several decades. Using up the two indicated areas of green belt in Ben Rhydding does not in any way safeguard or make stronger the adjacent areas. It reduces the greenbelt between Burley in Wharfedale and Ben Rhydding. Describing the boundaries as weak appears to mean that the council wants to develop the sites they enclose. Describing boundaries as less durable is equally specious; they have lasted for at least 25 years and there is no case to change them. The intention of green belt is that it remains in perpetuity.

Green belt is not necessarily of high landscape value. In this case, however the landscape value of Wharfedale, including the two areas to the east of Ben Rhydding, are of particular landscape value as they provide the setting to the town and the important distant vistas, as far as Beamsley Beacon, for travellers arriving in rural Wharfedale, whether by road or train. Views of the green belt area east of Ben Rhydding from across the valley around Denton and Askwith reinforce this attractive, sylvan, rural nature.

Green belt has the purpose of preventing urban sprawl. There is precious little open countryside between Ben Rhydding and Burley in Wharfedale. Because Ilkley is constrained by the moor to the south and the Nidderdale AONB to the north, the only ‘spare land for development’ in Ilkley is to the east and west of the town which creates an elongated ‘sausage’ shape with the extremities in semi-detached ghettoes at considerable distance from services and infrastructure.

In order to release green belt, there needs to be a ‘net gain for bio diversity’. There is no mention of how this can be demonstrated for any of the three impacted sites in Ilkley.

The Green Belt Review (undertaken by consultants for BMDC) and potential changes/allocations should have been fully consulted upon and put before an Inspector prior to the overall composite/allocation process. As this has not happened, the Green Belt review needs public examination at this stage of the process and brought before the Inspector for examination as the next stage in the overall process, before the specific sites are scrutinised and the plan completed in 2023.