AIREBOROUGH Civic Society is holding a guided walk to celebrates 50 years of Conservation Areas.

The walk around Nether Yeadon and Little London Conservation Areas will be led by Andy Graham, Urban Designer and former Conservation Officer for Leeds City Council. It will take place at 10am on Saturday, June 17.

The cost of joining the event is £3, which will go towards the Aireborough Civic Society fund for new Blue Plaques. To book a place e-mail: clivewoods@hotmail.com or telephone 0113 2503580.

In a statement the civic society said: "This part of Leeds is fortunate in having a wonderful variety of historic buildings in many separate settlements combined with beautiful Pennine countryside. Aireborough has eight Conservation Areas. Nether Yeadon is hidden away and still surprisingly rural, and Little London is a close knit community of former weavers’ cottages."

"Nether Yeadon is a rare survivor of pre-industrial Aireborough. It has excellent examples of early Yeomen’s houses and agricultural buildings, 10 of them grade II listed, all set within an historic, agricultural landscape setting. Of particular note is Low Hall, which has remnants of Esholt Priory in its fabric. These types of buildings do survive in other areas in Aireborough, but their all important surroundings have gone, many swallowed up by recent housing developments."

Clive Woods, Chairman of Aireborough Civic Society said: "We are very pleased that Leeds has recognised the distinctiveness of Aireborough by increasing the size and number of our Conservation Areas. It helps our communities to keep the best of our heritage and should mean that our Green Belt has greater protection."

He added: "However even with Conservation Area protection we still have to persuade planners and developers that some less obvious Heritage buildings should be converted and not demolished, in particular our industrial heritage. Leeds has done a great job of creating new Conservation Areas but has been less successful in protecting important details like original windows and doors. An even bigger challenge is the threat to build yet more new homes in these areas as part of the Leeds Core Strategy and now in the controversial Site Allocations Plan."