EARLY proposals for a 112-home estate in Denholme have been revealed.

The site at Long Causeway, on the Keelham side of the village, is among five across Bradford district revealed by one agent acting for housing developers.

Early discussions are underway with Bradford Council planners in a process that could eventually see nearly 600 homes built at the sites.

Politicians, including Cllr Simon Cooke, who represents Denholme as part of his Bingley Rural ward, are predicting that more developers and landowners may now start testing the waters for future housing developments.

A number of so-called “screening requests” for sites throughout the district have been submitted to Bradford Council in the last week. They are not full planning applications, but a sign that developers are considering potential future developments by seeing what studies would be needed into these sites before an application was submitted.

The sites are on fields of the edge of Denholme, Cottingley, Sandy Lane, Queensbury and Clayton. Most of the requests, including the one for Denholme, were submitted by agent Richard Mowat on behalf of Charles Patchett.

The requests are all linked to the council’s Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment, which was created to establish if there were enough sites available in the district to deliver new homes.The council predicts that 42,100 new homes will be needed by 2030, although the exact sites have yet to be allocated.

Richard Mowat, the agent, said the requests were submitted to see whether the sites would need environmental impact assessments if full planning applications were submitted. He said any planning applications would still be some time away, and these requests would allow applicants to be prepared if and when the sites were allocated as suitable for housing.

The requests have been made public on Bradford Council’s planning website.

Cllr Cooke said: “The council has taken a very long time in sorting out their allocations, and it seems like now we might get a lot of developers or landowners attempting to get ahead of the game and put sites forward.

“You might start to get more people submitting these screening reports to see what the potential is to develop them.”, to test the council’s defences.

“At the moment I think it is right that people are putting in objections.”