A massive community centre is ready to open in an historic town centre building following £100,000 of improvements.

Keighley Muslim Association has spent five years refurbishing the 135-year-old former Albert Street Baptist Chapel.

It will provide meeting space and a caf for all Keighley people, as well as much-needed educational, prayer and social facilities for Muslims.

The £200,000 cost of buying and renovating the three-storey listed building was raised entirely from the local Asian community.

The association plans to apply for Single Regeneration Budget cash to improve other parts of the building, which is near Keighley library on the opposite side of Albert Street.

A central part of the £4 million Highfield SRB programme is to provide a community centre for the whole area.

The Muslim Association has already renovated the basement and ground floor of the former chapel, installing central heating and new ceilings, plastering and carpets.

A large kitchen has been created in the basement to serve a planned community caf, as well as providing catering for Asian weddings.

There are also washing facilities for young people who need to pray as part of after-school religious lessons.

The Muslim Association plans to run nightly study support sessions for children and teenagers, who currently meet in a crowded house elsewhere in Highfield.

Association spokesman Javed Bashir says the building, straddling Highfield and the town centre, is ideally situated to serve the wider Keighley community.

"People from different nationalities will be able to come and enjoy traditional Asian food. It will be good for building cultural relationships."

"We want to build bridges. We're in the year 2000 and people have to mix with other people."

The caf will be open through the day with volunteer staff serving anyone who wants to socialise or eat Asian food.

The large ground floor room will be available for business seminars, as well as meetings and presentations.

Mr Bashir says the building will be particularly useful for Asian elders in Highfield, who until now have had to cross busy North Street to reach the Muslim Community Centre, in Lawkholme.

The building was used as a Baptist Church for at least 100 years, from 1865. The Baptists eventually joined with the nearby Congregationals to set up Christchurch, in Spencer Street.

The basement was used during the Second World War to collect recycled paper and later by the Post Office as a temporary sorting office.

In recent years, the building was the Brooks knitting wool shop, and the Race Equality Council and Liberty Church currently use other parts of the complex.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.