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Opposition building to Leeds homes plan
Wayne Elliott with the memorial to his daughter Natasha at Morley Academy. Looking on are Natashas aunt Sue Pearson and grandparents Jennifer and Tony Elliott.
Opposition is mounting to plans to build almost 90 new homes in Morley.
Persimmon Homes wants permission to develop an estate of three and four-bed houses on a vacant plot of land at Daisy Hill.
Residents who have complained have now been joined by the family of a 16-year-old girl killed on the railway track which runs close to the planned site.
Natahsa Elliott died as she tried to coax her dog off the line in 2010. She had been walking her pet through the plot of land which lies between her home on the Rydals and the main train line.
Her grandfather, Tony Elliott, now fears another potential tragedy if homes are allowed to be built even closer to the tracks.
He told the YEP: “It frightens me. If [the developers] fill that gap, the new houses will be right up to the tracks.
“You already see grown-up people clambering over the wall to cross the tracks. I worry that if you have a lot of family homes there, the children might be tempted as well.”
The boss of one of the area’s longest-established businesses – whose firm borders the site – has also raised concerns.
Bob Harder, of Harder Bros Ltd, which makes sausage casings, said he was “very, very concerned” by the proposals to build homes just 200m away from his perimeter and that of the OSS oil recycling plant.
Mr Harder said, although the firm had been going for 73 years and employs 140 people, it would count for nothing if residents in future decide to complain to the council about industrial noises or smells.
He said: “As soon as they build those houses people may say they’d didn’t realise there would be issues with industrial noises and if they complain to the council then you are suddenly at fault.”
Morley Town Council has also objected to the plans on the grounds of worries about drainage and water run off from the new estate, poor bus services and narrow roads accessing the site.
Leeds City Council will have the final say when it examines the proposals, probably next month.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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