River conservationists wanting to bring Bradford’s becks back out into the open have welcomed Council support.

Environmental officers have been asked by councillors to explore ways of helping the Aire Rivers Trust make the becks that run under part of the city clean and visible again.

The Trust wants the becks to be part of Bradford's regeneration plan by opening them up and making them more accessible.

The Council’s environment scrutiny committee encouraged officers to see if they could look at ways of helping the Trust work with other agencies such as Yorkshire Water and the Environment Agency to raise funds and carry out some of the projects in a plan it has just produced called Bradford’s Becks: A new Lease Of Life.

Professor Barney Lerner, trustee of the Aire Rivers Trust and chairman of the Friends of Bradford’s Becks, presented the plan to committee members.

He told them: “Other towns throughout the world have found that re-naturalising their rivers and making them visible and accessible has increased visitor numbers, reduced anti-social behaviour, and raised property values."

The Council’s drainage officer, Tony Poole, said he felt the plan was “premature” and that no action should be taken until the Area Action Plans for the City Centre and the Shipley Canal Road Corridor were finalised.

But councillors, despite being told Council officers’ time was already pressured, decided that officers should explore possible opportunities and report back at a later meeting.

The Trust’s plan suggests 12 ways of improving the becks and helping improve Bradford at the same time. They include a small renaturalisation project to showcase to developers and the public what could be achieved, as well as a scheme making improvements to water quality by finding and correcting mis-connected drains.

They would also like to set up a water stewardship scheme to encourage landowners alongside the beck and its tributaries to look after the river.

A team of volunteers from the Friends of Bradford’s Becks is already looking into putting up new signs to show people where the becks are and to explain some of their history, marking out the course of the beck where it is in culverts under the city centre.

The new signs would also replace ‘Danger, contaminated water’ signs dating from the 1970s, which are still in place around the Shipley area.

Anyone interested in helping The Friends of Bradford’s Becks should go along to their next meeting on Monday at 7pm in the Gumption Centre, Glyde House, Glydegate, Bradford, or get information from the Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/BradfordsBecks or by visiting bradford-beck.org.

e-mail: kathie.griffiths@telegraphandargus.co.uk