ANOTHER threatened area of Ilkley is about to get special status to protect its character from unsightly housing development.

If planners give the go-ahead today Middleton will join the centre of the town and the village of Ben Rhydding as Conservation Areas.

This will add extra weapons to the armoury of those trying to preserve the character of Middleton in the face of rampant in-fill development.

The plan to create the new Conservation Area will go before the Keighley Area Planning Panel with the recommendation that members give the go-ahead.

A report to the meeting says: "The designation of Middleton as a Conservation Area will result in more stringent consideration of planning applications in the area and monitoring of tree work."

Ironically, a controversial planning application for in-fill development in Middleton will go before the panel at the same meeting. A proposal for six new homes at Crossways, Rupert Road - which includes the conversion of the existing property into three flats - is also recommended for approval despite objections from neighbours, Ilkley Parish Council and two ward councillors. The plan has been substantially altered since the intervention of Bradford's Conservation Officer led to councillors postponing their decision.

The Middleton Conservation Area plan was initially suggested by the Ilkley Design Statement group which highlighted worries about the changing nature of housing development in the area.

Government policy began to try to encourage builders to keep their hands off the green belt and create new houses on previously developed sites. But in Ilkley this has been proving contentious because it has meant the loss of large detached properties in their own grounds as they were replaced with smaller houses or flats.

Members of the Design Statement group asked for the expansion of Ilkley's central Conservation Area, and the creation of two new ones for Ben Rhydding.

Recently the central Conservation Area in Ilkley was substantially increased and Ben Rhydding got its own protective designation.

Middleton is an area which is characterised by large Edwardian villas with substantial grounds, built when the impoverished aristocratic Middelton family sold off large parts of land to newly rich textile magnates and other industrialists to pay off debts in the 19th and early 20th century.

Parish Councillor Kate Brown is one of the people at the forefront of the fight to preserve the character of the area. She is the chairman of the parish council's plans committee, a member of the Design Statement Group and Ilkley Civic Society. She said that council officers had been working behind the scenes to create the Conservation Area since the Design Statement Group suggested it.

She said: "We feel it should help to preserve the character of Middleton because it is in danger of being destroyed with so much development taking place over there."

Asked if it would make a big difference to the way developers were targeting the area she said: "It is difficult to say but we would like to hope so. It was included in the Design Statement recommendations with a Conservation Area for Ben Rhydding and the enlargement of the Ilkley Conservation Area.

"If it goes through, all those things will have been achieved in some measure which we at the Design Statement group welcome."

She said that the group was hoping that its overall recommendations would be adopted as official supplementary planning guidance to give further protection for the whole of the town.

"We are just looking for some supplementary planning guidance. The Planning Panel has welcomed the Design Statement as a material consideration but it does not have the weight of supplementary planning guidance," said Coun Brown.

Ilkley district and Parish councillor Anne Hawkesworth welcomed the plan to create the new Conservation Area. She said that it would divide the buildings in Middleton into two categories with the intention or preserving those with the most architectural merit.

Coun Hawkesworth said: "It is quite extensive. The reality is that it is not before time. There are, within, Middleton, some extremely fine buildings - a prime example is Crossways."

But she added that some residents might not welcome extra planning protection because selling off property to builders was an extremely lucrative activity.

If Conservation Area status is granted the boundary will stretch from the River Wharfe to beyond Curly Hill, and from an area bordering the Lido on Denton Road to Nesfield Road to the west.