This month's is being devoted to providing you with an update on all the activity underway regarding the Councils proposed plan for future development within the Bradford District. There is, as you may have read, an overall housing requirement of 45,500 in the Bradford district.

It is proposed in the draft document (Core Strategy DPD) that Addingham as a 'Local Service Centre' (how dare they refer to our village as such !!) accommodates 400 of these homes.This number represents a 26% increase whereas the draft document refers to an average increase across the District of 16%. Bradford have been seeking comments on the proposed plan and their public consultation process started on the 28th of Nov 2011 and finished on the 20th of Jan 2012.

Your Society has been very active in this consultation process and decided to call a village meeting to seek comments from the residents and to submit a formal response on behalf of the village. We carried out a leaflet drop of around 1500 homes with an invitation to attend a meeting on the 9th of Jan. The Memorial Hall was packed 'to the roof' with around 230 people crammed into the hall, unfortunately we had to turn away around 30 residents. Thank you to those of you who attended this meeting, it demonstrated the depth of feeling within the village against these plans. Since the meeting we have been collating all the ackcomments: those made at the meeting, the comments forms dropped off at the library, the letters and emails. It has been a huge undertaking to review, document and record these responses. We have replied to the 60 or so emails, for the handwritten comments please accept this update as our acknowledgement.

As mentioned above the formal deadline was the 20th of Jan, however the Council have extended this to the 29th of Feb. However, we are not entirely convinced that responses sent after this date will be dealt with in the same way as those received before it. We are naturally suspicious and a little 'wary' ....with some justification, as we think you will agree !! Therefore we submitted a 'holding response' on the 20th. Even this initial response runs into 4 pages and has 4 attachments ! Some of you may have tried to locate and complete Bradford's official response form, this was a very difficult exercise and is just one aspect of the process that we are very critical of.

Our response has emphasised that it is an interim one, it will be followed by a more detailed response (including a copy of every email, Civic Soc comments form and letters), that we will reserve the right to change any of our comments/conclusions before the new deadline and that it reflects the comments of over 250 residents. Following all the comments from residents our response has identified and will highlight the key areas of concern: Transport and Parking, Education, Healthcare, Greenbelt and Setting, Conservation Areas, Heritage and Character, Flooding, Drainage and Sewerage, Farming and Wildlife, History and Archaeology. In our more detailed response we will be supporting it with comments from the residents and relevant documentation.

We are asking Bradford to tell us the basis for their figures, is it evidence based and have they identified a genuine need. We are confident that they will not be able to substantiate their plans. It is our intention to produce a Neighbourhood Plan which under the terms of the Localism Act allows communities to say where they think new houses should go and what they look like. This will be a significant project and will keep the Society very busy over the next 6 to 9 months. We will keep you updated. We are talking to a number of organisations in the Wharfedale valley in the hope that we can deal with the challenges ahead in a more united way.

We will continue to fight these proposals on your behalf and on behalf of the village as a whole. We are building up a comprehensive email mailing list which will enable us to communicate in a more effective way. If you have emailed This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it at any time over the last 2/3 weeks then we have your details, but for those who haven't, please email this address and simply ask to be put on our mailing list. Very shortly we will publish our interim response to Bradford and indeed all subsequent correspondence and documentation on our new website. Details will follow. For those who do not have access to a computer then we will of course continue to keep you fully informed via this newsletter. Finally, you will know that from this month we are increasing your annual membership subscription. We have a very busy 12 months ahead of us and projects and activities cost money. We hope you will agree that we do provide real value and you will renew your membership.

Thank you in advance.