It’s a big year for the Ilkley Literature Festival as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.

For the past four decades the festival has brought a host of big names to the town and focused attention from across the world on Ilkley. Its cumulative effect on raising Ilkley’s profile has been immense.

We can now enjoy the successes of years gone by in a new exhibition which opens to the public this weekend at the Manor House Museum in the town.

It’s a wonderful exhibition and includes correspondence from writers and poets who have graced the festival as well as a chance to see a rare edition of a Ted Hughes’s work.

It’s well worth a visit to see just how great the impact has been on Ilkley and how the festival has become one of the major dates in the national literature festival calendar.

But with a super programme lined up for this year’s celebration festival, it’s obvious that – although this retrospective is welcome – the organisers are not content to rest on their laurels and simply live off past glories.

This year’s event looks to be bigger and better than ever and the future looks exceedingly bright for the Ilkley Literature Festival – here’s to the next 40 years!

Plight of birds adds to housing fight

When Ilkley residents are so determined to protect the green and natural landscape of the area, it is fitting that nature itself could step into the planning debate.

House building targets, housing need, ‘land banking’ and the availability of brownfield sites elsewhere in the district have so far been scrutinised as part of the case for keeping Ilkley’s Green Belt green. Now it appears that Ilkley’s natural assets could in themselves put the case forward for protecting the Green Belt from wholesale development.

Should it be proven than one of the potential building plots identified in the last strategic housing land allocation assessment is, in fact, a crucial feeding ground for a rare species of bird, then this will bring in significant legislation to counter the case for a need to develop that land.

All those who have an interest in protecting the character of Ilkley do right to add as many good planning reasons for opposing development to their arsenal at this stage.

Whether they will stand up in practice, when speculative developers challenge the Local Plan, when landowners want to sell up, and when developers present an answer to the national housing shortage, remains to be seen.