COUNCILLORS have clashed over the number of new homes to be built each year under York’s Local Plan.

Labour members claimed last night, Monday, July 10, that the number proposed by leading Conservative and Liberal Democrats would deepen the city’s housing crisis and make it the preserve of a rich elite.

Cllr Daf Williams said the proposed target of 867 homes - rather than 953 suggested by independent experts - was down to short-term political priorities to protect the Green Belt at all costs, irrespective of the needs of people in York.

He claimed the coalition administration was rejecting independent evidence in going for the lower figure.

He said not one of the Conservative or Liberal Democrat councillors had mentioned the housing crisis where people on average incomes could not afford to buy a house.

But Conservative council leader David Carr claimed that when Labour had been in power, it had wanted to “concrete over the Green Belt and make York a suburb of Leeds”.

He also claimed the evidence base for the higher figure was not robust or proportionate and said the authority needed to get on with submitting its Local Plan without delay.

Independent Mark Warters said that according to an expert analysis of two years ago, two thirds of the demand for new housing resulted from international migration into York, rather than building homes for York residents.

Meanwhile, proposals to build 1,400 homes on Ministry of Defence land under the Local Plan were welcomed by a parish council representative The council is suggesting 769 homes should be built at Imphal Barracks in Fulford Road, which is due to close down by 2031, and 623 at Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Strensall, which is due to shut by 2021.

Tony Fisher, of Strensall with Towthorpe Parish Council, said that while it regretted the Government decision to close the QE barracks, it felt it was essential the site was developed as soon as practically possible after the Army vacated it.

“Allowing the site to lie vacant and deteriorate is not in anyone’s interests,” he said.

The local plan is intended to help the council set out plans for where new houses and businesses can be developed in and around York until 2030.