Planning bosses discuss progress on sprawling Leeds development vision

Leeds City Council’s Development Plans Panel will discuss the Aire Valley Local Area Action Plan (AVLAAP), which will guide the regeneration of the Lower Aire Valley.

The area contains over 400 hectares of development land which the council says can help meet Leeds’s growing need for housing and provide new jobs.

As reported extensively by the Yorkshire Evening Post, the authority has previously set an ambitious target to build 70,000 new homes by 2028 to meet increasing demand.

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The action plan - which has already been in development for 11 years - is going through various stages of its final preparation, alongside other key documents laying out planning principles and site allocations for the city’s major proposed housing and regenerative projects over the next decade and beyond.

Results of a public consultation - which gathered views from communities, landowners and developers - will be discussed at the meeting at Leeds Civic Hall this afternoon. .

A report being presented to the panel says: “It should be emphasised that overall there is considerable support for the AVLAAP and the benefits this brings to Leeds and the city region as a whole.”

The plan is being developed in the context of the council’s Core Strategy, adopted in 2014, which sets out the overall scale and distribution of housing and economic growth.

It will be developed further and will be subject to intense high-level scrutiny before it can be adopted as an official document guiding the future look of Leeds.

Work on the document has been in progress since 2005, but has been revised to take account of the downturn in the economy post 2008 which has impacted on the viability of development as well as potential new ways of funding infrastructure and sustainability demands.