A councillor has presented images of rubbish in shop doorways and rusting street furniture to colleagues in a bid to trigger debate on maintaining standards of care for Ilkley town centre.

Councillor Mike Ridgway gave a presentation to Ilkley Parish Council, showing the results of an early-morning survey he carried out checking the town’s streets.

“I believe there’s a need for investment in Ilkley with the prime objective of improving the maintaining the general housekeeping and presentational standard of the town,” he said.

He took photographs of cracked paving stones, patched-up asphalt footpaths, rubbish in shop doorways, out-of-date signs advertising events, A-boards left in the street overnight, piles of leaves under benches, and rusty waste bins and street furniture.

He said: “The Grove, our most prestigious thoroughfare, looks like a patchwork quilt. Ilkley is at a crossroads. It can decline further, to being a tatty town, or it could become a smart town.”