DEMOLITION work has started to make way for a long-awaited village hall and 31 homes in Cowling.

Workers are demolishing the village's Acre Mill to make way for the development, which is being undertaken by Cross Hills-based Skipton Properties.

The new, purpose-built hall will provide a much-needed facility to accommodate different groups.

It will include a 10 metre by 18 metre multi-purpose hall, stage area, foyer, two meeting rooms, library, kitchen, stores and toilets.

There will be access for the disabled and the hall will be allocated seven car parking spaces.

The 31 homes will include three and four-bedroom, three-storey town houses and three-bedroom mews cottages. Prices will start at £150,000.

Brian Verity, managing director of Skipton Properties, which will also develop the existing village hall on Park Road, said it was an "exciting development" and it would provide a much better facility for residents.

Speaking this week, Cowling Parish Council chairman John Alderson said: "It is brilliant that the work has started - we were told it would start in November last year and it has done.

"The workers are well on with it, Acre Mill will probably be demolished by the end of the month. It is really looking positive. No matter what anybody says, this is an investment in the future of Cowling - the development is of greater value than the old village hall, which was about to close."

Mr Verity has signed an agreement to ensure the village hall is built within two years of the first house being occupied.

When Craven District Council planners agreed the development in October 2004, Coun Robert Heseltine said the development was "a once-in-a-lifetime chance to provide a state-of-the-art facility to service Cowling through the 21st century into the 22nd century".

In nearby Sutton, the village's run-down Greenroyd Mill is about to be developed by Beck Homes.

It has permission to build 76 homes - 46 in the mill and 30 new builds - and a number will be offered as affordable housing.

Work is expected to start in the late spring or early summer.

Beck Homes land director Simon Prest said: "We plan to redevelop the existing mill into 46 homes and build 30 new homes in the grounds, all with car parking. This will allow the retention of an important local landmark and the re-use of a derelict mill building.

"Along with the new homes there is the provision of new playground facilities for the adjacent school and improvements to a footpath.

"The architecture of the new build homes will be sympathetic to the existing mill building and provide a collection of homes that I am sure the discerning home buyers of Airedale will respond to.

"We have worked hard to get this project off the ground and, without the help of the mill owner's agents, Westlake & Co, of Gargrave, and the planning department of Craven District Council, we would not have been able to make this amount of progress."

Elsewhere in South Craven, Glusburn firm Cirteq is set to submit new plans to develop its Hayfield Mills site.

Blueprints for 51 apartments and 37 homes were turned down by planners in July last year.

The plans were submitted after financial director Andrew Crabtree highlighted the development was crucial in keeping the business - the UK's only manufacturer of circlips - in Glusburn.

This week he told the Herald: "We expect to re-submit our application within the next two months. The re-submission will incorporate a modest reduction in housing density.

"We are confident that other measures, to be outlined in the re-submission, will satisfy all the concerns raised by the planning authority at the original submission."