Morley Folk pack Inspectors Hearing



Morley Folk fill Leeds Civic Hall at the Inspectors Meeting

 A hundred Morley residents attended a packed meeting at Leeds Civic Hall today to campaign against Labours LDF plan for 7,200 new homes for the Morley wide area.

The meeting - which was a session with the Planning Inspector who is examining the plan to see if its sound - is the only such meeting during the examination process because of the large numbers of objections form the Morley area. I was delighted to see so many people from different communities coming together to support each other.

My colleague Cllr Tom Leadley lead the discussion with a clear paper that confirmed Labour Leeds City Councils population projections were bonkers and miles away from the truth. He also gave clear evidence that Labour Leeds couldn't deliver over 4,000 new homes each and every year to 2028. Planning Officers could offer no coherent strategy on where the money for the new infrastructure required by Labours LDF for schools, roads or health centre would come from. Indeed they have no plan.

The Planning Inspector was fair and gave everyone who wanted to comment an opportunity to do so but the clear and consistent message was that the infrastructure required for Labours Proposals for 7,200 new houses for Morley was not affordable or deliverable. Taking into account the fact that Morley's primary and secondary schools will be full by 2016 with students already living in the area then Labours proposals are exposed as being nothing more than a Developers Charter.

Indeed after Labour Leeds agreed to reduce the contribution Developers have to make for affordable housing from 25% to 15% Developers are now moaning that they can't even afford that meagre amount! If Labours LDF gets through then we will seem more Executive Style Housing and none of the affordable housing we actually need.

The clear message from this mornings meeting is that Morley is full and we will resist an attempts by Labour Leeds and their Developer buddies to overdevelop any of our communities.



Morley Campaigners this morning