PRESS RELEASE - Kirklees Greens to vote against Local Development Framework

Kirklees Greens Councillors confirmed today that they will be voting against the Kirklees Local Development Framework proposals at the Extraordinary Council meeting on Tuesday,

Councillor Andrew Cooper, Leader of the Green Party group on Kirklees said,

"We proposed the lowest allocation of houses to be developed at the November Council meeting at 16,200 when the Local Development Framework was last considered. By opposing the Local Development Framework on Tuesday we will be calling the Conservatives bluff as the supposed protectors of our green spaces. It would be ironical indeed if the Conservatives got away with styling themselves as the “Green Saviours” of Kirklees. The Coalition Government's National Planning Policy Framework and the Conservative Chancellor George Osborne’s desire to use the planning system as an engine of economic growth is what is behind the threat to all our green spaces. The Green Party has a responsibility not to let the Kirklees Conservatives off the hook and have a free ride on Tuesday. We will be calling on them not just to vote against the Kirklees LDF but to condemn their own government for their assault on green spaces just as organisations like the National Trust and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England have  done already. As such we will be voting against the LDF prposals on Tuesday. What ever figure for the number of houses is finally agreed on Tuesday the Conservatives should be challenged to give a cast iron guarantee that their Government will not try to increase the number of houses agreed for Kirklees by regarding locally determined decisions as 'unsound'."