Owners of Otley's closed Bridge End auction mart would like to see a hotel or pub on the riverside site.

Parkmount Estate Company (Allerton), Ltd says the site is ideal for a hotel, pub or shops to cater for the hundreds of houses badly served on the north side of the river.

And the company has said it will be asking Leeds planning authority what it would approve on the site.

Karl Kunz, of Parkmount, said it was certain that the site would never be used again for a cattle market.

He said: "The site is very central to Otley and there are more houses on the north side of the river. We would like to see shops, a hotel or a pub, there are very few shops on that side."

With the possibility of a new Sainsburys store off Bondgate, he thought the question of another supermarket was out of the question.

He added that it was a distinct possibility that Parkmount would shortly be approaching Leeds City Council to ask what it would like to see on the area.

But Martin Sellens, principal planning officer with Leeds City Council, said although officers would be delighted to talk to Parkmount, the site was subject to planning restrictions.

"It is part of the definitive green belt and is also in the flood plain which are two issues straight away to deal with."

"It is an important gateway into the countryside although there are buildings there at the moment that we would have to look at."

The riverside site is earmarked in the revised unitary development plan - the planning blueprint for Leeds - as green belt.

The cattle market closed last month with farmers blaming the general state of the farming industry.

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