YORK'S beleaguered Local Plan will once again be under the spotlight tomorrow as councillors meet to discuss it for the first time in months.

Already hit by long delays, he document has been in limbo for nearly a year since political changes at the council meant the then opposition parties could force the Labour-lead council to look again at housing targets.

Today the Local Plan Working Group - a cross party committee responsible for advising the ruling Executive on the plan - will meet for the first time since Conservative and Liberal Democrats took control of the council in May.

The committee will consider two new reports - one on the "objective assessment of housing need" and a second on economic growth predictions for the city - which together come up with a housing need figure of 817 new homes a year.

The papers consider more up to date population figures, taken from data collected in 2012, which estimate York's population in 2013 grow by 17.1 percent between 2012 and 2031, a much smaller increase than the 26.1 percent growth predicted by the previously used 2008 data.

And for the first time the papers show that a fresh draft of the plan could take "windfall" housing sites into consideration, meaning the official target for the number of newly built homes needed in York could be lowered.

Labour Cllr David Levene, who sits on the group, said his party was disappointed to see so little progress in the four months since the election, and raised some fears about the new figures which they fear a planning inspector may not accept.

He added: "Population and economic projections are based on recession years. The report proposes no action to deal with poor levels of affordability. There is a reliance on windfalls despite the decreasing availability of these sites over the years. And at every opportunity, there is a bias towards the lowest figure available, which taken together is not sustainable."

A spokesman for the ruling groups said the papers were "progress reports" which would be followed with a lot more work in the coming months.

He added: "The Executive wants to create an evidence-based plan that protects the greenbelt. We will listen to residents, including holding a full consultation."