A town councillor and local businessman has attacked Bradford Council for creating a £20,000 playground water feature instead of pumping cash into called-for facilities in Ilkley.

Ilkley parish councillor Stuart Goddard labelled Bradford’s decision to spend the ‘unbelievable’ money on a water play feature in the Riverside Gardens as ‘badly timed’ and ‘without realistic or reasonable foundation’.

Members of the parish council have been pushing the local authority for over a year to spend money on a variety of other public facilities and other initiatives.

Councillors had not asked for the addition to the playground, which was itself redeveloped with thousands of pounds of Ilkley Parish Council and Bradford Council funding in recent years.

Councillor Goddard said: “My whole-hearted belief is that this generous sum of money could be much better invested in providing or used for much-need repairs to the existing facilities, used by a great deal of Ilkley’s other residents and visitors.”

“The money could instead been spent on investment in facilities at Ilkley Library, an overhaul of Ilkley Pool, funding to help preserve the Lido, and 20 miles per zone zones around schools, to help protect local children.”

The independent councillor also asked why the money could not be spent on public toilet facilities at the King’s Hall, bringing a farmers’ market to Ilkley, new grit bins for Ilkley, repairing potholes, or could fund the £20,000 required for a legal challenge against the recent planning inspector’s decision to allow Tesco’s bigger supermarket plan.

“Please do not assume that I am against any scheme to provide facilities for children in our town, particularly those that have disabilities,” said Coun Goddard.

“I am simply speaking out now because I feel that these much-needed funds can be better used at this moment in time.”

He asked why plans for the water play area had not been presented to the parish council’s plans committee.

Work has already started on the feature.

Meanwhile, a debate on spending more money on parks projects in Ilkley and Addingham was deferred by Bradford Council’s Keighley area committee last week, to give councillors more time to study proposed schemes.