COUNCIL representatives are to meet a group campaigning for the empty former fire station in Haworth to be retained as a community asset.

Campaigners, who hoped to have the mothballed property turned into a community safety hub, had convinced Keighley Area Committee to list it as an asset of community value.

But the West Yorkshire Fire Authority, which closed the station in 2014, successfully appealed the listing decision, which was then overturned under delegated powers by a senior Bradford Council officer, and it now plans to sell it on the open market.

At a full meeting of Bradford Council last week, Worth Valley councillor Rebecca Poulsen put forward a motion calling on Bradford councillors who sit on the fire authority to table a motion of no confidence in its chairman, Kirklees councillor Judith Hughes.

She said: “It would be in the fire authority’s best interests to work with the community, not against them.”

But Cllr Richard Dunbar put forward an alternative motion, instead asking for the council’s neighbourhoods team to meet the Haworth Fire Station group to see how it can be supported.

He said Cllr Hughes is “providing good quality leadership of the authority through difficult decisions, just as the council itself is facing very difficult financial circumstances”.

Members of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council last week decided against buying the former fire station.