A MAJOR industrial site in Otley is to be redeveloped.

Planning approval has been granted to allow a three storey, 66 bed care home along with offices, homes and retail units - including a supermarket - to be built at Ashfield Works.

Otley Town Council and Otley Town Partnership had flagged up serious concerns about the scheme, particularly over its impact on traffic in the Westgate and Manor Square areas.

But Leeds City Council’s South and West Plans Panel voted on Thursday, April 25 for the proposal to be deferred and delegated for approval.

The officer’s report concluded that: “This...is an important opportunity to secure the regeneration of this brownfield town centre site which will provide further housing and employment opportunities...with a well-designed scheme which reuses the key buildings of merit, combined with appropriately designed new buildings.”

Based off Westgate and owned by the city council, Ashfield Works has been mostly derelict in recent years though it still has some tenants. Several buildings, including a former printing press manufacturing base, will be converted under the plans while others will be demolished.

The care home will be built in the north of Westgate part of the site which is also in line to get several retail and office units and 128 car parking spaces. A 122 space public car par along with six homes and another retail unit, meanwhile, are planned for the southern section.

The planning approval came with 34 conditions attached. For the north of Westgate section they mean that the care home can be built, but not occupied, until:

*A riverbank/riverside walk is completed

*The old buildings on site have been restored

*A new signalised junction on Westgate has been installed and a MOVA (microprocessor optimised vehicle actuation) system has been introduced.

Otley Town Partnership Chair Peter Heald MBE and Otley and Yeadon ward Councillor Colin Campbell both spoke at the plans panel meeting.

Cllr Campbell, who voted against the proposal, said he feared it would lead to a poorly designed development and ‘further congestion’ in the town.

Mr Heald said: “I think it’s a very poor plan but the major concern is the traffic implications. The eastern relief road - tied in to the anticipated East of Otley development - should alleviate those problems but that’s a way off and we have to see if this is a sustainable development now.

“We’ve no problem with the proposed uses in principle, they fit the brief and tenants are relieved in a way that something is finally going to be done. It’s just that the site’s not big enough for everything they’re proposing and the design is poor.”