Eyesores we can do without (From Wharfedale Observer)

Eyesores we can do without

2:22pm Thursday 28th February 2008

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THE Wharfedale Observer is not in the business of running our area down. Indeed, we have supported many campaigns for improvements and efforts to save locally based services, such as those at the hospital in Otley.

However, we make no apology for featuring in this week's edition a number of areas in Otley which have been bulldozed and have been awaiting redevelopment for so long that they are in danger of becoming real eyesores.

As a reader points out, first impressions are so important when visitors come to the town, and it is galling that the first scenes their eyes are likely to alight upon on entering Otley from the east are the boarded up Summercross public house and the empty and desolate former Otley Motors sites. Dare we mention the state of the so-called public toilets at Cross Green?

Once in the town there are the sites of the former Colman's Yard area, which has been waiting for years for store group Sainsbury to move in, and the Bowling Green pub which has been fenced off in such a way that it has already become an eyesore.

Thankfully there is now some sort of activity on the Sainsbury site and Netto has lodged its plans for the Otley Motors site. However, we are no nearer knowing exactly when the Wetherspoon group is going to do something with the Bowling Green.

Moving on, we have had something of a wait for action at the old Ashfield works site and nothing appears to have happened on the Garnett's riverside scheme.

Finally, there is the desolate looking Bridge End Auction Mart land, for which the only scheme put forward is one for housing. Given that the land is on a flood plain, there seems little chance of anything happening on this site in the near future.

Planning a route for the Yorkshire In Bloom judges to avoid them getting the impression that the town resembles a bombsite is going to be difficult.

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