Friends of Kingstone Green Belt
Friends of Kingstone Green Belt
Friends of Kingstone Green Belt is a group of local residents working to ensure that planning proposals affecting our Green Belt are properly examined, properly evidenced, and properly contested where they should be.
Bellway Homes — one of the UK's largest housebuilders — has held a contractual interest in land south of Keresforth Hill Road, Barnsley, since December 2021. Through the spring of 2026, their contractors have been undertaking extensive ground investigations on the site, including borehole drilling, trial pits and ground gas monitoring.
No planning application has yet been submitted. The scale of investment in pre-application technical work, however, strongly suggests that one is being prepared for submission within the coming year.
The site is crossed by a well-used bridleway — a public right of way that passes the Grade II listed stable block to Keresforth Hall and draws walkers and riders from well beyond the immediate area. It connects to a wider network of paths through the historic countryside south of Barnsley.
The land in question has been designated Green Belt for many decades. Under national planning policy, most development on Green Belt is automatically classed as "inappropriate" and should be refused unless the developer can demonstrate "very special circumstances" — a deliberately high bar.
Friends of Kingstone Green Belt has been formed by local residents who intend to engage constructively and properly with the planning process when an application is submitted, and to make sure the public interest is properly represented.
This is the open countryside in question. Working farmland on the southern edge of Kingstone, designated Green Belt for decades and crossed by a public bridleway.
The Keresforth Hill Road site is not being proposed in isolation. Two further housing schemes are advancing on nearby land released from the Green Belt through the 2019 Local Plan — one already under construction, the other in planning. All three sites share the same road network, schools, GP surgeries and emergency service provision.
The Green Belt around Kingstone exists to safeguard countryside from encroachment and to keep land permanently open. This is what national planning policy was designed to defend.
The bridleway across the site is a public right of way that passes Keresforth Hall — whose stable block is a Grade II listed building — and is used by walkers and riders from well beyond Kingstone. Its protection, and the setting of the listed building it passes, matter to a wide community.
When multiple sites are proposed in one corridor, the combined effect on roads, schools, GP capacity and emergency services must be properly assessed — not considered in isolation.
We are building a careful evidence base on every relevant material consideration so that our engagement with the planning process is credible, accurate and effective.
The more residents who are informed and ready to engage when an application is submitted, the stronger the community's voice will be. There is no fee to join, no commitment required, and no obligation beyond keeping in touch.
We are also happy to hear from journalists, councillors, planning professionals, ecologists or anyone with relevant expertise willing to support the group's work. Please get in touch via the email address above.