Councillors may seek High Court action - with the threat of jail - to stop a company allegedly flouting planning laws and spoiling life for residents.

Bradford Council says Northern Developments (UK) Ltd is continuing to use The Yard on Baildon's Butterfields Industrial Estate for an unauthorised recycling operation which involves stone crushing, despite being fined £12,000 by magistrates.

The company was prosecuted by the Council and earlier this month was convicted in its absence by Keighley magistrates for non-compliance with an enforcement notice issued last May when a retrospective change-of-use planning application was also refused.

Now Council officers are recommending that members of the town and country planning (Shipley area) sub-committee, which meets on Thursday, go to the High Court for an injunction.

If the Council's application is successful the company's directors face jail if they do not comply with the injunction.

But Northern Developments' managing director Andrew Jones said he had been talking to officials to try and resolve the situation and he was confident the company would be ''in a satisfactory position with the Council'' by Thursday.

Mr Jones said the fine issued at Keighley would be paid and said unauthorised works had not continued on the site.

Residents living near the Otley Road site say they have made repeated complaints to the Council about the unauthorised use, saying it is an eyesore and creates noise and dust.

Local resident Jean Davidson said the site was an "eyesore'' and her husband Herbert added: "I think an injunction is the only way we're going to get them off the site because the Council's tried everything else and it hasn't made one iota of difference.

"We had terrible problems with dust in the summer, it's noisy and we have to look directly at the site - it's just the wrong place altogether for anything like this.''

Councillor Grahame Thornton (Lib Dem, Baildon) said: "The Council has to make sure those who don't comply with the planning laws are given tough treatment.

"They've been given every opportunity to come into line but haven't done so and I hope the committee agrees to instigate injunction proceedings against the company to stop them doing it.''

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