AN EXHIBITION featuring details of how Otley could be developed sustainably will be staged alongside a public meeting next month.

The event at Otley Methodist Church on Monday, December 1, has been arranged by campaign group ODD as part of its fight against new housing guidelines being drawn up by Leeds City Council.

The council has earmarked several of the town’s green fields as sites for some of the 1,177 homes its Local Development Framework has allocated for the town over the next 15 years.

ODD, however, has criticised those plans as unsustainable and instead asked a team of Masters level architectural students to investigate how Otley’s brownfield plots could be best used.

The findings of that six- week Sheffield University project will be unveiled at the meeting and ODD spokesman Alastair Watson hopes people will be impressed.

He said: “This very effective team of students were given a flexible brief to create a sustainable mix of housing and employment, and they have produced some very interesting and imaginative development proposals.

“Those are not presented as schemes that will be built in their present form, but they are a serious study of what could be possible in Otley.

“We hope they will stimulate thinking and raise expectations about what could be achieved on what are critically important brownfield sites within the town.

“The project aims to inspire Otley residents, businesses and landowners, together with the town and city councils and developers, to think more creatively about how Otley can be developed in a more appropriate way, thus leading to a more sustainable and vibrant town.”

Doors open at 7.15pm, with proceedings beginning at 7.45pm, and the evening will include a question and answer session along with an update on the progress of ODD’s campaign to get the framework changed.