A SILSDEN man prompted by a present-day controversy has highlighted a decades-old plan to solve the town’s flooding problem.

Gary Creighton has revealed information about proposals in the 1950s to cover Silsden Beck with concrete.

Local councillors suggesting creating a tunnel for the beck as it flowed through the town centre between the Post Office and Clog Bridge.

Mr Creighton searched out an old newspaper cutting after reading in last week’s Keighley News about problems concerning a beckside flood barrier.

The current barrier project, spearheaded by Silsden Environmental Action Group and town councillors, received funding from Bradford and Silsden councils in 2014.

Bradford Council now says the partially-constructed barrier alongside Silsden Beck by the Post Office does not have planning consent, and has threatened legal action to have it removed.

Mr Creighton found the 1950s article – believed to be from the Keighley News – on the reverse of a report of a gift day at St James’s Church which featured his mother Phyllis Creighton.

The then Silsden Urban District Council discussed “doing away” with the goit – an artificial watercourse –– at Stakes Beck to enable the beck level to be lowered.

Town and country planners had suggested covering the beck from the Post Office to Clog Bridge, and demolishing a property on the east side of Kirkgate on that stretch.

One councillor said: “That is taking a long-term view and the cost would be enormous.

“There is no point making a road across unless there is some prospect of land being available for development."

The council heard that nothing could be done for several years because no money was available.

The councillors also decided the project would mean no need for a new bridge across the beck by the Post Office. That bridge was built in subsequent years.