ALMOST 700 new homes on a site at Staincross Common have been added to Barnsley Council’s development plans for the next 15 years as it juggles figures to meet the demands of the future.

The land was to have remained a ‘safeguarded’ site, meaning it was earmarked for potential development only after the duration of the local authority’s forthcoming Local Plan, meaning nothing would happen until after 2033 at the earliest.

But due to the need for more new housing development, the site will be brought forward under proposals from planning bosses, with the expectation it will accommodate 669 new homes.

There is already interest in the site from a developer, and adjoining land would then become ‘safeguarded’, meaning at some point in the future total new development of the site could reach around 1,350 new homes.

A draft on the Local Plan - a blueprint for development of employment and housing in the years ahead - was completed last year.

The document is so complex and important it must satisfy an external planning inspector before it can be adopted and she questioned whether the council was providing enough new homes.

A recalculation means around 400 new homes are being added, but the situation is complicated because the delays means some housing developments which formed part of the plan will be finished before it is adopted.

That means those homes can no longer be ‘counted’ and so more land has to be found.

And, where the so-called ‘safeguarded’ sites are used in the current plan, they have to be replaced by new ones which may be open to development from the 2030s.

The Staincross Common development is by far the largest addition to the council’s plan, with many of the other new sites in villages - a response to a question from the inspector about why development had been focused on larger towns.

Fifteen new sites have been earmarked for development, with ten of those in villages.

In urban areas, the former Mount Vernon Hospital site has been confirmed as available for housing and could take 74 homes, with a site at Hoyland - freed up by a change of route for HS2 high speed rail - could take 237, with another 112 on a site near Wood Walk.

In the villages, sites off Roughbirchworth Lane and between Sheffield Road and the River Don at Oxspring have been earmarked to take just over 80 homes, with 86 planned for a site off Darton Road, Cawthorne.

Fifty new homes would go on a site at Silkstone Common, with around 40 on land off Cote Lane and Halifax Road in Thurgoland.

The old Company Shop site at Tankersley could hold another 26 homes, with a site at Everill Gate Farm, Broomhill, taking 26, Church Street, Brierley, accommodating 29 and land near Shafton taking 51.

Mr Jenkinson said the council had looked to provide sites which, where possible, avoided taking land from the green belt.

He accepts the potential development at Staincross is so large it could have an impact on the local infrastructure.

He said: “There would be a lot of work required if this site did make it, to address the local impact.”

That could mean working out how roads would be able to cope with the extra traffic generated.

A series of public hearings, to discuss the implications of the council’s plans, have already taken place and the final round of questions will take place in April, with consultation on the proposed changes to the plan starting ahead of that, from Monday.

If the new version of the plan is found to be satisfactory, it could go to Barnsley Council for a decision by the full council by September.