The Council are now saying that they hope to have read all the representations made by residents about the draft Local Plan by the end of October.

How long it will be, before meetings start to take place at which residents will have the chance to challenge Labour’s Plan assumptions, is anyone’s guess.

However the Plan’s assumptions about the number of homes that could be built on brownfield sites continue to be eroded.

The latest planning application – for the Brecks Lane site at Strensall – is for 104 homes. That compares to an assumed capacity for the site, listed in the draft Local Plan, of 82.

Last week we learned that the British Sugar site will accommodate 1300 homes. The Local Plan forecast only 998.

In addition, around 20 planning applications for new homes have been submitted to the Council over the last 4 months, for sites where either zero residential units had been assumed in the Local Plan or where the number now planned is over 20% higher than the Local Plan estimate.

These include proposals for The Press office building in Walmgate, the Burnholme Club site and Our Lady’s school on Windsor Garth.

They do not include new “windfall” sites like the Bonding Warehouse, Ashbourne House, the Yearsley Pub not to mention Oliver House where we now understand that negotiations about the buildings future have recommenced (some 18 months after it became empty).

It is now clear that there is sufficient brownfield (previously developed) land to satisfy York’s reasonable housing needs for the foreseeable future.

What is clear now is that Labours Local Plan has already been discredited. They will have to re-write large sections of it.

The sooner that they start the better.