A MAN hoping to build a holiday park between Steeton and Silsden plans to appeal against its refusal by Bradford Council.

Jonathan Smith hopes to enlist support from Keighley MP John Grogan and parish councillors in both communities.

He was this month inviting the politicians to visit the site, off Keighley Road and alongside the River Aire, to discuss his proposals in detail.

A senior council planning officer refused the application for 10 caravans and 10 cabins on the site for reasons including flood risk, potential danger to nesting birds, unsympathetic design and landscaping, and unacceptable intrusion into the green belt.

Mr Smith bought the site three years ago to grow hundreds of willow trees to be turned into handmade cricket bats.

The willows will take 15 years to mature, so he sought an additional use for the land to help ensure the business was viable in the intervening years.

Talking to the Keighley News this week, he insisted his plans would not have an adverse effect on the landscape.

He said: “It’s not a leisure park. There will be spaces for 10 touring caravans. There will be 10 little ‘shepherd huts’ for glamping, with a silver grey colour in keeping with the willows.

Attractions would include small animals like chickens, as well as the existing wildlife like mallards, deer and barn owls.

Mr Smith said. “We like people to come and fish. We have a few families who already come in to try to catch crayfish.

“We are already popular. I reckon 80 or 90 people walked through the land over Easter and many cyclists go past.

“This would be a good place for people to set up as a base for holidays and they don’t even have to come by car because of the railway station nearby.”

Mr Smith said he had already put a lot of work and money into tidying up the site, adding: “I’ve already planted 700 trees and almost a mile of hedgerow.”

Mr Smith said that from 1908 to 1954 the site was Silsden Urban Council’s sewage works, then was used as a landfill site until the early 1980s, when it became a depot for the construction of the nearby Aire Valley road.

The site was used for livestock grazing until Mr Smith bought it just over three years ago.

Mr Smith says this history made it “ludicrous” for the council to claim his caravan park would not be in keeping with the area.

He said: “I remember it being a rubbish dump, my father remembers it being a sewage works. I used to go down there bottle digging.”

“Nobody in Steeton has ever seen the site flood. My land is higher than the main road.”