Major fears for impact of 700-home Huddersfield scheme as local services ‘stretched to the limit’

With waste services “stretched to the limit” and residents waiting up to a month for doctor’s appointments, a local councillor has voiced major concerns as a 770-home Huddersfield development is in the works.

Back in 2021, Kirklees Council gave plans for the massive development at the former Black Cat fireworks site off Blackmoorfoot Road, the green light. The application was for outline planning permission, relating to all matters other than access. Once complete, it will also contain a doctor’s surgery and a commercial unit.

The scale of the project and resulting strain on local services has sparked major concern for ward councillor, Alex Vickers (Greens, Crosland Moor and Netherton), and residents.

Councillor Vickers told last night’s Full Council meeting that doctor’s surgeries in the area are already struggling to accommodate patients, with three to four week waits reported for appointments. Dentist’s were said to be full, having two to three year long waiting lists. While the development includes a new doctor’s, Cllr Vickers was concerned that the doctor’s surgery will be challenging to staff given the national shortage of GPs.

Waste services were also said to be “stretched to the limit”, and the road network under strain.

Councillor Vickers said that when using a “conservative estimate”, the development will put around 1,000 more cars on the road, add 1,500 people needing to register with doctors’ surgeries, and was likely to have around 500 children who will need school and nursery places.

She continued: “I’ve spoken to staff at eight junior and infant schools close to this site and they are nearly all at capacity. One school has approximately 45 places across all age groups available and the rest are full. Teachers and teaching assistants are concerned about the increasing numbers of children with SEND needs in the area and how they’ll be able to support the numbers that they have currently without adding additional numbers.”

The councillor wanted to know how money secured through an agreement with the developer will be used to support local schools and how the issues will be addressed when the 770 homes are built.

In response, Cabinet Member for Finance and Regeneration, Cllr Graham Turner, said: “It’s 770 units. Now that, traditionally, will probably take you 15 years to build out. As houses become occupied, we monitor on a daily or a weekly basis, school places. There’s a contribution of £1.3m based on the 770 dwellings to be spent on priority admission area schools, so there’s money there to take any pupil numbers increase.”

Councillor Turner said the council would “easily” be able to cope with the increasing demand, given the pace of the build. He also said that the difficulties being experienced around doctor and dentist surgeries were not unique to the area. The capacity of local roads was said to have already been taken into account when the site was granted planning permission and included in the Local Plan prior to that.