A PARTNERSHIP between housebuilder Lovell and Craven District Council which could see the building of 100 new homes is going ahead - despite calls from residents for it to be scrapped.

About 500 residents of Granville Street say their lives have been blighted since Lovell started work on the residential redevelopment of the former council offices almost two years ago.

They claim repeated breaches of planing conditions should persuade the council - which is set to make £3.5 million if the deal goes ahead - think twice about entering into any further agreement with the developer.

Five councillors also called for the decision by the council's policy committee to enter into talks with Lovell to be discussed by the whole council at an extraordinary meeting.

But at last week's meeting, after councillors went into closed session because of fear of revealing financial details relating to both Lovell and the council, it was agreed to continue talks for the eventual development of the site at Horse Close.

Earlier residents' spokesman Jane Houlton urged the council to end talks with the developer.

She and some councillors also called for the entire discussion to be held in public - in the interests of transparency.

Mrs Houlton said none of the residents had exaggerated the extent of the problems they had faced.

"My fellow residents fail to understand why, given all these breaches of condition since 2013, the council has failed to take legal enforcement action against Lovell."

And she warned of similar behaviour in the area of Horse Close.

"You cannot trust the reassurances that Lovell will give you about their future behaviour. Your carefully written planning conditions are empty words, and with all the knowledge and experience of the last 21 months, the council are now deciding to inflict all this misery on another area of town."

And she said the council was being 'fundamentally undemocratic and wrong' to discuss the matter in private.

Council leader Cllr Richard Foster said the council took the complaints of the residents very seriously, that the enforcement team was looking very carefully at the site and said he would be sending her a written response.

He said he wanted a full debate on the development agreement and was concerned that would not happen if councillors were restricted from referring to financial matters, as would be necessary in an open meeting.

After the meeting, Mrs Houlton said residents were saddened by the decision.

"Many of the councillors looked surprised by what I said," said Mrs Houlton. "We are really disappointed that the council decided to ignore the evidence in their own complaint files, and the strong representations from so many affected residents."