Site

A quiet day with 16yo punctuated with a brisk walk up to the trig point at the top of the moor and back.

As we came back via the reservoir site I thought a new reference shot was in order. You can compare this image with my similar one from 2011, (and from higher up the hill, a 2011 view of the three reservoirs)  near the start of a long-running saga of destruction, dumping and dereliction which followed the golf club selling the site to a private developer. For a number of years I documented what was going on in a Flickr collection.

After a lengthy legal battle, Bradford Council finally brought a halt to activity and have had the site passed (back) them, not least because it was identified that the golf club (and earlier water companies) had only ever had the right to extract water from the site, they were never land owners. So the Council had owned it all along, as they do the rest of the common land that makes up Baildon Moor.

All of this became public a year or so ago, but as yet there has been no further activity on site. My guess is that the Council doesn’t currently have any pots of money available to do any restoration work, which might need to extend to removal of waste that was dumped here in the interim. 

This update from the Town Council (different body) a year ago gives some indication of what is planned, which is more or less what I’ve advocated since 2012, so hopefully that will come to fruition when resources allow.