The Thackley Trumpit
( Incorporating ‘The Idle Chatterer’ & ‘The Closing Times’ )
Tel. 07944969335 Email: billco@blueyonder.co.uk
Concreting My Childhood – Save Idle Moor
By Steve Wilson The Idle Lord
The Bradford Metropolitan district is a large sprawling area not often cited for its beauty. However, some 70% is green space and quite stunning in parts; it’s not all dark satanic mills up here.
This may not be the case if the rampant greed of property developers is allowed to hold sway over the next few years as house builders awake from years of recession.
Ilkley Moor…where locals wait armed with crossbows should Bradford Planners approach…
There are some very desirable outlying areas such as Addingham, Bingley and Ilkley, albeit that if Scotland gets independence, you can bet Ilkley will be hard on their heels.
Inner Bradford – a mix of the good, the bad and the downright ugly – does contain some really nice places to live too. Developers recognise this, hence a plethora of planning applications reflecting the current resurgence in the UK’s mad property market.
Driven by an easing of credit and very short memories, prices are surging once again.
George Osborne…unlikely to be buying a 3 bedroom semi in Bradford
The politicians tell us they have the current situation under control; this is patently b******s as a modest flicker upwards of interest rates would be seismic.
Regardless, the quest for attractive land to build on means green spaces everywhere are under immense threat.
Spivs and speculators everywhere despite what Uncle Vince says
There are 3 separate planning applications in this part of the city for almost 1,200 new homes. Now we have another proposal for 70 new houses on Idle Moor, to be built on land that was previously a mine. The locals have a case for feeling somewhat shafted.
The land is classed as Urban Green Space and, if opened up, you can bet that subsequent applications will follow as each field is picked off like a domino effect.
For example, the recent failure of plans to develop a nearby football pitch have temporarily land-locked a brown-field site – the old boiler works – approval of this plan is one more piece in the jigsaw to open this.
Developers spread like a cancer.
It’s gold rush time again…lets have another crash!
According to protesters there are over 300 houses for sale in Idle & Thackley so 1300 extra houses hardly seem a priority. This is not to count the number of empty homes lying waste, estimated at over 1m nationally.
Local schools are already oversubscribed as are health practices and the roads are jammed so much there is hardly enough space for the local hooligans to try to break their necks doing wheelies on their souped up BMX’s.
The developer – MGL Homes Ltd – is listed in Idle but has little real local interest other than turning a few quid. The majority shareholder lives in rural Pickering where they are a little more reluctant to concrete green fields.
A cursory look at the last filed accounts (30/11/12) shows little substance nor evidence of consistent trading. Put bluntly, this is a punt to grab a quick buck and the council should recognise this.
Eric to the rescue?
Of course, protesters largely live in houses built on green fields too so developers will argue their protests are inadmissible; this is missing the point completely. Development should be planned, sustainable and not limitless; clearly the current proposals are not.
Protesters might expect to take comfort in the fact that previous, smaller planning applications have been rejected by the Secretary of State and the reasons for these rejections have not changed. However, the Government’s obsession with new housing suggests not.
Bradford Council has convinced itself that it needs some 40,000 homes over the next decade and, as ever, they are taking a “cut”. Sport & Leisure are demanding a bung of £121k for “the provision of recreation open space and playing fields due to the extra demands placed on the locality by this development.” How will they provide open space when they are concreting it all? This is a blatant lie as the only recreation provided in the area is by private clubs because the council simply has no strategy at all.
It would be another severe beating on the doorstep and a bucket of cold water to wash off the dust before Blue Peter.
I grew up playing on Idle Moor, roaming the fields of the Booth’s farm hoping not to get shot or gored by a bull, coming home black bright like a miner as we played commandos rolling in the coal dust on the moor, our own Utah Beach. Fortunately, Mr Booth never shot us.
We played King of the Castle on a little hill right where they want to build crappy boxes. It was here that I realised throwing the object of your teenage desires off the top was not a way to her heart. Limbs luckily intact she vanished very quickly mumbling “psycho…”We fumbled in long grass on silly, endless summer days, coming home red-faced and none the wiser. We ran, we hid, we mucked about; sometimes we hit golf balls for as far as we could with no hope of ever finding them but secretly aiming at the cows. We had free space and we loved it, but in these money obsessed times of greed these simple things seem not to matter. To hell with the quality of people’s lives nor the right to some free space from the claustrophobia of modern life. Finally, one look at the Planning Committee sitting for the next scheduled meeting at Wacky Hall down in Bradford would fill most objectors with dread for there is only one that represents a ward remotely near.
One more nail in the coffin for a part of the city where life is still good.
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