A former head boy of Greenhead High School, Utley, is submitting fresh proposals as to how best to replace the World Trade Center, a year on from September 11.

Next Wednesday is the anniversary of the terrorist attacks which saw the collapse of the twin towers and Raymond Crane, 56, is working on new designs for the area in New York.

In May of this year, as managing director and principal engineer of consulting engineering practice Meinhardt USA, Mr Crane spearheaded one of six specialist teams commissioned to submit proposals for the rebuilding of the center.

The ambitious designs were "met with universal disgust" according to Mr Crane, who grew up in Haworth but moved to America 12 years ago and is now working on new ideas for the future of the site.

In a competition that has been opened up to the whole of America, entries and ideas have to be submitted by September 16 and there will be five shortlisted by September 30.

Mr Crane (pictured) explains: "Previous schemes have not been well received -- they have been viewed in terms of crass commercialism and people are not quite ready to move on just yet.

"It has all become very complicated and convoluted. There are so many constraints and the issue has become heavily politicised. It's political ping pong -- all very up in the air.

"The fact that the retail potential and commercial centre of this space needs to be rejuvenated will always be compromised by what happened there.

"We are focusing our ideas on working on the whole of Manhatten and boosting the surrounding areas of the towers site so that the space can be freed up. Maybe the way forward is for a memorial but the commercial needs cannot be ignored. We must do what we can to make it more palatable -- maybe using the footprints of the tower as a memorial."

Mr Crane added: "Next Wednesday there will be a major service there. Usually, over the summer, business slows down and we would have expected it to build back up by now but there is a sense of everything being on hold until the anniversary. It feels like it will be a big hurdle to get over but we need that to move on.

"There's a lot of anticipation and everyone's talking about it in the office. The names of everyone who was killed will be read out. It's expected to take two and a half hours, which is a sobering thought in itself.

"It's still hard to imagine the scale of the tragedy but something positive needs to start happening down there for us to move on.

"There needs to be a sense of renewal to get us back to a semblance of normality."