Campaigners battling to prevent unwanted development on the site of Ilkley's former Middleton Hospital have suffered a blow.

A long-awaited report from an environment inspector has recommended the site should remain as a major development site in the Green Belt. The report forms part of the Harrogate Local Plan, Harrogate Council's planning blueprint for the next ten years. Objectors, including Ilkley Parish Council, Bradford Council, the Council for the Protection of Rural England, wanted the designation removing.

Those objecting told a public inquiry back in January 1998 that development on the site would cause enormous problems - including increased traffic - ruin the beauty of the site and leave Ilkley's infrastructure unable to cope with a large influx of new residents.

The environment inspector has said the policy should not be changed.

The decision has angered Councillor Anne Hawkesworth (Con, Ilkley). "This is extremely bad news for Ilkley, indeed it could be a disaster." Coun Hawkesworth said some development was probably inevitable but it must be minimal.

The inspector's report says planning policy and the site's location within an Area of Outstanding Beauty 'point towards a relatively modest redevelopment that will, when compared to what was on the site, achieve more openness, environmental improvement and less visual impact.'

Councillor Kate Brown, chairman of Ilkley Parish Council, said: "The word 'modest' is slightly encouraging but the decision not to remove Middleton as a major developed site in the green belt is not good news."

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