Ilkley Town Council (ITC) ran a community consultation over the summer and would like to thank everyone who took the time to complete a questionnaire and provide feedback to the Town Council.
Ilkley Town Mayor, Councillor Damian Kearns said “We appreciate the time people have taken to share their views on how to improve our town. The consultation provided the Town Council with a lot of useful information which will be used to shape the Council’s priorities and action plan in the coming months and years.”
Since the consultation closed Ilkley Town Council has reviewed all the comments received from respondents in order to understand the key issues being raised. The most recurrent issues relate to waste management and recycling, governance and financial management of ITC and Bradford Council, and issues with traffic calming and road safety.
Ilkley Town Council will now task the committees of the council to review the feedback and issues identified through the consultation and consider how these can be addressed.
A full update on the consultation and actions taken will be provided in the next edition of the Ilkley Town Council newsletter which is due to be published early in the new year, and will also be available online.
The overwhelming issue at present is the closure of the HWRC. 93.7% of respondents are in favour of ITC reinstating a local Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) in Ilkley. There were a variety of opinions expressed about how this could be achieved and whether or not residents would be prepared to pay more through the precept to support this. Ilkley Town Council continues to investigate options for providing a functioning HWRC. ITC submitted proposals to Bradford Metropolitan District Council (BMDC) in July, suggesting that the facility could be retained by employing a private contractor to operate Golden Butts HWRC or for BMDC to continued to provide the service using funding from ITC and possibly other parishes. These proposals were rejected by BMDC who advised that they did not contain sufficient detail. BMDC have not replied to the Town Council’s request for a list of specific points which would need to be addressed in order for BMDC to consider it.
BMDC rejected a request for a Community Asset Transfer of the site and have announced that the site will be sold. Ilkley Town Council has submitted an expression of interest to ensure the Town Council is notified when the site is marketed. Options for mitigating the impact of the closure are also being explored and it is hoped that a full report will be presented to the Council shortly.