NEW house-building in the East Riding must not be at the expense of regeneration in Hull, a public hearing has been told.
Proposals to build almost 24,000 new homes across the East Riding over the next 15 years are being scrutinised in a public examination in Beverley.
The hearing is examining East Riding Council's Local Plan, which maps out a range of land-use policies until 2019.
The housing element of the plan includes provision for about 1,600 homes being built until the end of the next decade.
A spokesman for the Save Our Ferriby Action Group called for greater co-operation between council planners in Hull and the East Riding over policies on new housing development.
He said it made no sense to encourage large new housing schemes on greenfield sites in the East Riding when efforts to regenerate existing housing areas in Hull should take priority.
He said: "Our residents do not want anything undermining Hull because the city has to function properly in economic terms.
"The infrastructure for housing is already in place there and that's where the focus for new housing development should be.
"We want to see a strategy where Hull takes up most of the unmet housing need.
"There needs to be certainty on this between Hull and the East Riding because Hull should not be undermined in any way."
Jon Palmer, the East Riding's strategic development team leader, said his council's assumptions for new housing were based on forecasts of substantial economic growth in the region over the next few years.
They include an estimated of 1,000 jobs being created every year in the East Riding over the next decade.
He said this approach had been adopted instead of simply relying on recent population and migration trends.
Mr Palmer said: "The policy reflects the aspirations set in this plan and by the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) in recognition of a number of projects and investments coming forward, not least the £310m project involving Siemens.
"We believe this is the most appropriate approach to take for modelling future housing requirement."
However, Mr Palmer said the sheer scale of development associated with the renewables industry meant normal calculations equating employment land with actual jobs were no longer accurate.
"You cannot employ traditional employment densities to it," he told the hearing.
"The site in Paull, for example, is going to store very large wind turbines, which might require very few people to work in some parts of that site."
He said working with Hull over a joint housing strategy was already happening.
"You cannot treat housing in the East Riding in isolation to what is happening in Hull," he said.
Alex Codd, Hull City Council's planning manager, said the two authorities were in agreement over the suggested new house-building rates in the East Riding.
But he said the expectation for the Siemens development was that a "significant percentage" of new jobs created there would be filled by people already living in Hull.
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