PLANS to build up to 10,000 new homes across Bristol are coming back on the agenda after nearly two years of delays.

The awkwardly-titled Site Allocations Document and Management Options Document (Sadmod) was the second of two major plans Bristol City Council consulted residents on back in summer 2010.

The other was the Area Green Space Plan, which was heavily criticised for threatening to sell off more than 60 open spaces across the city for development.

Sadmod looked not only at some of these sites, but others that could potentially accommodate thousands of new homes to cope with Bristol's growing population.

More than 18 months after the public were asked to have their say, the results still have not been released.

The council says they will be published in March, along with recommendations by officers for which sites should and should not be developed.

Further consultation will then be carried out on the so-called "preferred approach" between March 23 and May 4, the Evening Post can reveal.

Sites for potential development included brownfield land, former schools, businesses that are due to relocate, allotment land and other derelict or disused plots.

In total 80 sites have been earmarked for development – not including those in the green spaces plans – to provide up to 9,516 homes.

In some cases sites have long been derelict and have not seen opposition from local people, who would rather see something done with them.

But there have been petitions against plans to build on a number of allotment sites – especially as there is a shortage of such land in Bristol.

There were also objections to a number of new traveller pitches but these have been removed from the plan and will be dealt with separately in the summer.

Like the green spaces plan, which threatened to build on park land, a number of areas in the city are not included in the scheme at all.

Clifton, Cabot, Cotham, Bishopston and Redland have no sites put forward for building.

Of those parts of the city that are suggested for development, there is a huge variation in the number of homes proposed.

The proposals are divided between 12 of Bristol's 14 Neighbourhood Partnerships, which groups various parts of the city together.

The Hengrove and Stockwood area has the largest single allocation, with more than 3,800 homes although almost all of these would be part of the Hengrove Park development.

The Henleaze, Stoke Bishop and Westbury-on-Trym area on the other hand, is earmarked for just 70.

Opposition parties have raised concerns about the way the Sadmod process has been handled.

Conservative leader Peter Abraham said: "We support a strategy of re-developing brownfield sites wherever possible and the site allocations plans identify many areas which could be suitable for this purpose.

"However, we remain concerned that this document also controversially contains large tracts of privately-owned green spaces which could be lost.

"We will continue to argue for meaningful public consultation in relation to all sites contained within the site allocations document as distinct from the kind of sham exercises favoured recently by the Lib Dem cabinet."

Labour spokesman Councillor Ron Stone has called on the council to allow Neighbourhood Partnerships to have their say on the proposed development sites.

Mr Stone said: "There are a number of issues with the site allocations document.

"It was extremely confusing for everybody that the parks document went out together with the site allocations document.

"This document was put on hold and is now out of date for a number of reasons, including the length of time since the financial assumptions were made.

"Secondly, the whole of the council's budget is under severe pressure because of cuts so both strategies will have to be financially re-assessed anyway.

"The current administration says it is very keen to devolve to local communities through Neighbourhood Partnerships. The problem we've had is the apparent reluctance to carry this ethos through."

Lib Dem executive member for housing Anthony Negus, pictured, stressed that further consultation would be carried out, and said the council wouldn't necessarily develop every site.

Mr Negus said: "We are required to identify sites which have potential uses.

"We need to look at what uses they are capable of delivering and there will be different points of view on that.

"It has been delayed by what's been going on with the parks and green spaces strategy."

● For the next two weeks, the Post will look at all of the proposals, focusing on a different part of the city each day.