COUNCILLORS are worried about the future of York's crucial development plan, as it emerges a key committee has not met in months.

The city council's Local Plan Working Group (LPWG) should be part of the Local Plan's development, but council papers show it has not met since November and has no meetings scheduled. The situation has prompted some members to voice concern that policies are languishing in negotiations despite a looming Government deadline.

The Local Plan should set out where houses and businesses can be built over the next 15 years, but York's is not yet confirmed. Government ministers have warned they will take over the process if councils do not have them in place by next year.

Now opposition Labour and Green councillors say they are worried about progress, and about development and house building in York while the plan is still not complete, but the Conservatives, in joint control with the Lib Dems, have backed up official statements from the council saying "work is ongoing."

Green councillor Andy D'Agorne, who sits on the LPWG, said: "It’s really important that this cross- party committee is kept informed of progress and involved in decisions about revised plans to allocate land for development as they emerge. Time needs to be allowed for consultation on the revised Local Plan prior to its submission for approval by a government planning inspector.

"This is a plan for everyone, not just the developers and planners to decide."

Labour's Cllr David Levene branded the situation "deeply worrying" and said that while the Local Plan is missing the city is at risk from "speculative developments" and neither residents nor businesses cannot plan properly for the future.

He linked the delays to long-standing arguments over how much greenbelt land will have to be built to meet York's need for housing, saying the council administration is "caught in a trap between coming clean about the need for some greenfield sites, or failing to meet the Government's deadline."

Council leader Cllr Chris Steward has pointed to Labour's record in power until 2015 saying they held "virtually no meetings" of the LPWG whereas the new administration has "meaningfully involved it in decisions" and will continue to do so.

He added that people in York saw Labour’s version of the plan as "deeply worrying" and pledged to meet the government’s deadline.

He said: "We have always said there will, as there has been over recent years, be some development on greenfield land but it will be much less than Labour’s expansionary rather than realistic plan proposed."