Silsden roads campaigner Beryl Simister last weekend met Cllr Latif Darr, the man who has so far refused to give the go ahead to the adoption of Spencer Avenue.

After the meeting with Bradford council's chairman of transportation and planning committee, as well as Silsden parish councillor Benita Smith and local MP Ann Cryer, Mrs Simister said there had not been much progress and described the meeting as "disappointing."

As reported in the pages of the Keighley News over the last few months, Mrs Simister, of Hunters Meadow, has been tirelessly battling to get Bradford council to adopt Spencer Avenue, an unmade road which links many homes to the town centre shops.

Mrs Simister, who is wheelchair bound, says she and countless other able bodied people have to go down the middle of the road, dodging traffic, rather than risk serious injury on the uneven pavements.

Mrs Simister says of Cllr Darr's visit: "He came and had a look and took a walk around. He was very sympathetic but it was basically no, it is not going to be done."

Recently Bradford council leader Cllr Ian Greenwood called for a full report into the issue of unadopted roads in the district. Mrs Simister says because of this report there are no developments on the horizon.

"Until the in-depth investigation is sorted out nothing will be done. What he has been looking at are roads that lead to schools or old people's homes, and that is not the category we are in at all.

Mrs Simister says Cllr Darr is looking at the possibility of acquiring funding from other sources. One of the options being investigated is the EU funding initiative, Objective Two, which is typically used to promote regeneration to provide jobs and enterprise.

Cllr Darr said he would also look into where compensation money went, paid by the Ministry of Defence after damage was caused to the road surface by running tanks up and down Spencer Avenue during the Second World War.

Mrs Simisters says: "All that will take time, but at the moment it certainly does not seem like it will be coming from Cllr Darr's works fund."

She says she is not deterred and is continuing the fight. She will be taking her petition to the meeting of Bradford's executive committee on Tuesday, April 11.

She says: "I want to get a group of people who signed the petition to go down to City Hall en bloc."

Mrs Cryer says: "There are a large number of unadopted streets in the Keighley area, which are left over from before the creation of the Bradford Metropolitan Council in 1974. Beryl is right in raising this issue and she has my full support."

Parish councillor Benita Smith says she hopes records may show what happened to the money from the MoD.

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