Businesses around Shipley Glen today made an impassioned plea for visitors to start visiting them - once a foot-and-mouth ban is lifted.

Firms at the popular tourist spot have suffered dramatic falls in visitors since the decision to close off surrounding land, due to an outbreak of the disease, was taken in February.

Shipley Glen Cable Tramway, which was opened in 1895, this year expects to attract only half of the 100,000 passengers it ferried up the valley in 2000.

Baildon Golf Club, meanwhile, has lost an estimated £12,000 in green fees alone, while Shipley Glen Pleasure Ground has seen business down by 80 per cent every weekend since the ban was imposed.

But with the restriction set to end on Friday, tramway owner Mike Leak is hopeful they can all recover some lost ground - starting this weekend.

He said: "I'm a bit of a doubting Thomas but if it the ban is lifted on Friday it will be marvellous, a great relief, and we just hope people will start coming back up here to enjoy themselves.

"We've all been hit hard since February, because people just stopped coming, so we really need to get the message across that everything is back to normal and there's plenty to do."

Now Mr Leak, who has run the service with his wife Maureen and a team of volunteers since 1994, is just praying for a long, hot end to the summer.

It's a hope shared by club secretary with Baildon Golf Club, John Cooley, who is just relieved the uncertainty is over.

"It's wonderful news," he said. "We've been waiting for it for a long time and it's been on and off whether it would go, but now it's finally ending.

"Now we can hopefully get back to where we were before all of this, but we've lost more than five of the seven months playing season, so it's going to take a bit of time.

"However, we had a fire here in 1988 which knocked us back and we recovered from that, so I don't see why we can't do it again."

Mr Cooley added that he hoped lessons had been learned by everyone involved in handling the foot-and-mouth outbreak, so a repeat epidemic could be dealt with more effectively.

Denise Breeze runs the children's rides in the Shipley Glen Pleasure Ground next door to the historic tram ride in Prod sLane.

She said: "I'm excited but also apprehensive, because while we've stayed open since March, business has just dropped through the floor and people have been staying away.

"We'll never make up what we've lost, but if the crowds start coming back now then at least the year won't have been a total washout."

Like rural attractions up and down the country, all of the businesses are keeping their fingers crossed against a re-occurrence of the disease in the area.

Bradford Council made the decision to re-open the moor and glen after talks with the Government, but has warned they would be immediately closed again if there was another outbreak nearby.