Twenty-five men will be laid off and work will stop on a building site because planning bosses say new houses cannot be built in artificial stone.

Skipton Properties wanted to build 25 houses on land at Victoria Road and Brow Road in Haworth. Planning permission was granted in August 1989 when Bradford council's Keighley planning sub-committee said the houses should be built in natural or artificial stone.

Skipton Properties says that given the cost of excavation works and the building of necessary retaining walls on the site the firm considered it essential the new homes should be built in artificial stone.

But that plan was thrown out at yesterday's meeting of the sub-committee at Keighley Town Hall which said that artificial stone would not be in keeping with the area.

Skipton Properties managing director Brian Verity is incensed by the decision. "We wanted to provide low-cost housing for local people," he says. "But to use natural stone would add another £100,000 to the costs. How can they say one thing and then change their minds?" He also says that other houses in the area are built in several different materials.

He says the site will be made safe and building work will stop.

Planning committee chairman Cllr John Cope told the Keighley News after the meeting that the committee tries to deal with all matters fairly. "We have been very flexible with this company in the past," he said. "If Mr Verity does not agree with the decision then he has the right to appeal."

Planners refused permission for a new factory for Aerovac Systems.

The Sandbeds-based company had proposed a new 2,835sq mtr site at Belton Road, Silsden. But planning bosses refused the application because the development did not provide for sufficient landscaped areas. Aerovac had said that to provide larger landscaped areas would be commercially unviable.

Cllr Eric Dawson, who represents Silsden on Bradford council and supported the Aerovac application, told the meeting he did not want to see jobs and businesses taken away from the town. "We are tittle-tattling over a few bushes," he says.

Permission was given for the conversion of a store to form extra living accommodation at 1 School Street, Steeton.

An application to change a former Keighley College building in Dalton Lane, Keighley, into a timber merchants warehouse was also approved.

Planners also approved a change of plan to plot 20 at a housing development at Freedom Mills, East Morton. They gave the go ahead for an entrance vestibule at basement level because it did not affect the height of the house.

A conservatory built onto a barn conversion at a house in Ilkley Road, Riddlesden, could be demolished after planners refused planning permission. an enforcement notice relating to the erection of the unauthorised conservatory has been served on the property owner.

An outline application to change Bocking Gargar, Halifax Road, Keighley, into a restaurant was withdrawn.

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