CHANGES could be made to a major new housing development in Silsden.

Skipton Properties already has planning permission to provide 26 homes on the site of the former Harwal Works in Elliott Street.

Demolition work is underway at the canalside site to create space for new houses and a mill conversion.

The company has now applied to make changes to the mix of houses and apartments, along with an improved access from Elliott Street.

The project has been welcomed by ward councillor Adrian Naylor.

He said: “It’s pleasing it’s a brownfield site being reused for housing, rather than taking more of the greenbelt.

“This will provide a different mix of houses for Silsden because it’s primarily apartments that will be useful for people who want smaller, more easily maintained accommodation with easy access to the Keighley bypass.”

Silsden has been earmarked for 1,200 new homes during the next few years, with most planning applications expected to be for greenfield sites on the town’s outskirts.

Skipton Properties’s original plans – approved by Bradford Council last October – called for demolition of the ‘northlight’ sheds with retention of the three-storey main building.

The old mill would be converted to 12 apartments, while ten new houses for apartments were to be built on the cleared land.

Plans were welcomed at the time by Cllr Naylor, but fellow district councillor Andrew Mallinson called for the project to be postponed because the site might be needed for a new Silsden school.

The new design – submitted to Bradford Council this month – involves a mixed residential scheme of two and three-bedroom, two and three-storey houses.

There will also be a new-build two-bedroom apartment and the “sympathetic” conversion of the existing mill into one and two-bedroom apartments.

Skipton Properties said it planned a “strong linear form” of terraced cottages and houses along the Elliott Street frontage, each set back about two metres.

The new access would be more central to the site, improving visibility in both directions, and would include high arch frames.

The oldest buildings on the Elliott Street site date from 1880 but development continued until the 1920s.

Harwal Works was at its most intensive use in the 1970s when Cavalier Harrison employed about 75 people, but the company relocated to Keighley and Burnley when the Silsden site became unsuitable.

The latest company in the complex, King Cole, vacated in February last year.