FED-UP residents of a large block of flats in Ilkley claim their lives are being made a misery by building work on the former college site.

Residents of Deaconess Court on Queens Road have sent a long list of complaints to Ilkley Parish Council after putting up with misery at their back door for months.

However the builders say they are doing everything they can to keep disruption to a minimum.

The college campus is being converted into an exclusive housing estate by Harrogate-based developers Crest Homes (Northern) Limited, and part of the site backs onto Deaconess Court.

Residents claim that the building work, which has been going on since early Spring, has caused massive problems at Deaconess Court. They say their list of misery includes:

l Structural cracks appearing in the walls of the flats.

l Damage to tree roots by trench digging.

l An overpowering three-storey block of flats built yards away from their back door.

l Large diggers working only a couple of yards away from the back doors leaving residents to afraid to go out that way in case they get hurt.

l Constant noise of diggers and lorries from 7.30am and scaffolding from 6.30am.

l Mud and dust everywhere, preventing residents from opening their windows on hot days.

l Damage to a nearby footpath, leaving it an unusable quagmire.

"It is pretty horrendous for us - I had to go away for three weeks because I could not bear it," said Mavis Ridsdale, 61, a resident of Deaconess Court.

"I have had to throw food away that I have left on the worktop because of the dust," she added.

Because of all the problems, Mrs Ridsdale and her neighbour decided to put the complaints in writing on behalf of all the residents of the 31 flats to see whether Ilkley Parish Council could help.

Neighbour Wendy Robson said: "It seems to us that they are doing more than they said they were going to do and they are building in places we did not think they were going to build.

"We would like to see more courtesy and awareness that there are other people around."

Parish Councillor Patricia Stevenson said that she had been made aware of the complaints and was going to get in touch with Crest Homes about them.

The Council's planning department and the tree service would also be told about the residents' concerns.

"Some of the problems you can't help because it is a building site but it would be nice if Crest Homes communicated with the residents and showed more courtesy," said Coun Stephenson.

But the development director of Crest Homes, Stephen Day, said that the residents should have got in touch with their office in Harrogate or seen the site manager if they had any complaints.

"As far as structural cracks are concerned I am asking my technical manager to look into it and we well be investigating that," said Mr Day.

He said that the company was in regular contact with Bradford Council's tree officers to make sure builders were complying with their wishes concerning woodland on the site.

Mr Day said: "We want to retain as many trees as possible."

As far as the noise and dirt was concerned, Mr Day said: "Part of the development is very close to the property, but I am afraid as much as we try to mitigate noise and dust, it is very

difficult to build without generating some

nuisance. But we really try to keep that to a minimum."

He said that if the builders had damaged a footpath, the company would re-instate it and he said that if the residents wanted to meet with officials from Crest Homes they would be perfectly happy to do so and see if they could mitigate the disruption caused by the

construction.

A spokesman for Ilkley planning office said that as far as they were aware Crest Homes had no