Skipton looks set to lose another mill to housing.

Loudspeaker manufacturer Castle Acoustics, which is based at Park Mill on Shortbank Road, is looking to abandon the site.

The company, which employs 24 people, has submitted a planning application to Craven District Council to build 13 homes on the plot, along with a landscaped area.

It is also seeking listed building consent to demolish the existing buildings.

Drawings reveal the homes will be three-storey with a garage. Residents will get to their homes via a newly created access road and there will be 26 car parking spaces serving the homes.

Castle Acoustics has been trading on the site since 1973, carrying out both its design and manufacture functions.

According to the company's website, the firm's founding concept was to be a complete loudspeaker manufacturer and despite changing times and the globalisation of manufacturing it has retained this as the basis for its business.

Its agent, John Steel, of JO Steel Consulting, said the company had been looking for an alternative base since February 2003.

He said: "For a considerable period of time they have been trying to, in discussion with Craven District Council, relocate out of the somewhat Dickensian premises they are in now."

Mr Steel said the company wanted a local, modern headquarters which did not have "horrendous" problems for the company and other road users when technicians' lorries came to drop off materials and pick up finished goods.

He told the Herald the mill was a "splendid" site for housing as it was sustainable and close to the town centre.

Castle Acoustics is following in the footsteps of another local firm Kingsley Cards, which is leaving behind its mill base to move to more suitable premises.

The card manufacturer sold Belle Vue Mills on Broughton Road to Novo Homes, which has been given planning permission for 124 homes on the site.

The company has to be out of the building by September and has searched for new premises in the area, with the help of the council.

In future it will carry out the bulk of its production in China and have its design and administration base in Cross Hills.

And Belle Vue Mills continues a trend of the town's factories being converted to residential use.

Former textile mill Victoria Mill, off Broughton Road, has been converted into an apartment block, Union Mill, near the canal, is a housing development and Alexandra Mills, on Keighley Road, was knocked down in 1984 to make way for new homes.

Craven District Council has already highlighted a lack of sites for industry in the area.

Planning officer Helen Signol said the Castle Acoustics application was likely to be considered at February's planning meeting.

She said the main planning debate was likely to centre around Park Mill being an employment site.

She said loss of employment sites contravened the council's planning policies but if the business was moving to another local site it might be looked upon more favourably.

A survey conducted by Ecotec Research and Consulting last year prompted Craven District Council to take a serious look at the space it has for industrial and employment use.

Land on the northern side of Skipton's western bypass and the Sandylands playing fields has been outlined as a potential industrial zone.