PIP Gibson – the community development worker for Keighley West – and I are trying to put together a proposal for a community-funded volunteer effort to clean-up an area off Occupation Lane, opposite the new housing estate currently being constructed by Persimmon Homes.

The area of land lies below Beltrees and Thornbank on the left-hand side above Keighley Road and Beckfoot Oakbank School, and is bordered above by houses on Ridgway Mount and Random Close and below by houses on Oakbank Drive and Oakbank Avenue.

I spent a day at the new West Yorkshire Archive Service building in Wakefield, where I found evidence of a sale between John Wall of Prospect House, Exley Head, retired draper, and George Robinson Lister of South Street, Keighley, a china dealer.

Most of the land is listed as belonging to Wall’s Trustees in a map held in Keighley Library, but some also belongs to F and G Haggas, still a well known local name, and validated by a Mr Sugden (again, a local name).

Another section belongs to Keighley Union (Guardians of the Poor) and the third to the rector of Keighley; those three landowners owned this land between them.

The land is not listed in the Land Registry, created as long ago as 1862, and there is no trace of any sale under Wall or Lister in the Registry Deeds for the 1960s, which require a surname for quick and effective searching.

Bradford Council has also been unable to help, so I now throw the question open to Keighley News readers. Please can someone out there help us establish ownership of this patch of wasteland?

COUNCILLOR MARTIN WALKER Bogthorn & Exley Ward, Keighley Town Council