A COMMUNITY group is developing its own sustainable plan to replace the controversial East of Otley development.

The application for hundreds of homes and a new road on the outskirts of the town has been paused by Leeds City Council to allow further consultation.

But Otley 2030 wants to see the hybrid planning application scrapped completely and replaced with its own scheme co-designed with local residents.

The group has invited Leeds University students to work on a sustainable development for the East of Otley.

This week a cohort of 20 students working towards an MSc in Sustainable Cities came to the town to walk around the proposed development site. The students will work in groups to come up with additional and new work on plans for a suitable, sustainable and connected development for Phase 1 of the site.

Last summer around 1000 people submitted objections on the Leeds planning website to the East of Otley Consortium’s (EOC) Hybrid Planning Application.

Otley 2030 says residents accepted the need for affordable housing locally, but felt let down by the EOC’s plans, which campaigners say did nothing to respect the climate and nature crises or to address the specific housing need.

In January, Leeds City Council confirmed it would pause the planning process. A new plan is expected later this year and LCC has promised to consult with local residents and key stakeholders to help improve the proposed development.

Otley 2030 believes the original plan was so bad that it should be scrapped altogether and be replaced with a plan co-designed with local residents, that places "people, nature, and community before the profit of developers".

In order to do this the group has been working with the University of Leeds on an alternative exemplar development. It says this plan will be compliant with the Otley Neighbourhood Plan and the Leeds Local Plan.

Andrew Howarth, Otley 2030’s Community Development Lead said, “It is no longer acceptable to put forward plans like those presented by the EOC. The knowledge and the technology is there to create a development that helps Otley thrive, whilst also increasing biodiversity and not contributing towards climate change. Working with the students will help us come up with a better, more realistic plan whilst also giving them some experience on a live site.”

The cohort of students will be returning to Otley on Friday, February18 to present their plans at the Bridge Street Church. The session, starting at 11.15am, will be open to the public. Anyone wanting to attend should email Otley 2030 (hello@otley2030.com ) as space is limited.

“LCC have declared a Climate Emergency and released a very promising draft Local Plan, so they clearly understand the issues at hand. We hope they will look at these plans and start to engage with the local community in a meaningful way over the development” said Andrew Howarth.

Otley 2030 hopes to use the ideas generated by the students to present a draft of their Exemplar plan at the Otley Green Fair on April 9. Go to https://www.otley2030.com/exemplar for more information on the plan.

In January Leeds City Council announced it was ‘pausing’ the East of Otley hybrid planning application "to consider how the proposals can be developed further to address the issues and concerns raised".

Further consultation is now expected to take place in November.

The move follows widespread criticism of the scheme and a massive campaign led by the East Of Otley Action Group and The ODD Campaign.

Earlier this month Leeds North West MP Alex Sobel met with Leeds planning officers after the dramatic pausing of proposals for the development.

Although there is no fixed timescale as yet, Mr Sobel said it was suggested to him that a period of “meaningful consultation” could begin soon ahead of the proposed formal, statutory consultation in November 2022, which would effectively restart the planning process with a view to a planning decision in the spring of 2023.

Mr Sobel said: “I am really pleased that the council is taking onboard the objections that I and others in the community raised about the proposed scheme. This will be a significant development that will have a big impact on our infrastructure, landscape and biodiversity, and we need a scheme which fulfils planning requirements and that is reflective of the community’s needs."