ANY future use of former council buildings in Silsden must be sensitive to their surroundings, a ward councillor has urged.

Adrian Naylor warned that the former library, council offices and toilets are in the town centre conservation area.

The town and district councillor spoke out after all three buildings were sold for thousands of pounds more than expected.

Bradford Council sold the buildings through Leeds auction house, Pugh & Co, after they were unexpectedly pulled from sale during the original date.

The library building in Bolton Road had a guide price of £80,000 but was sold for £180,000, while the adjacent Wesley Place office building sold for £160,000 – far more than the guide price of £30,000.

The nearby toilets – next to the Punch Bowl pub car park and recently the subject of a 'save our loo' campaign by townspeople – sold for £35,000, more than three times the suggested amount of £10,000.

Bradford Council earmarked in 2012 that proceeds from the library and office sale should go towards the £300,000-plus cost of refurbishing the nearby Silsden Town Hall.

Silsden’s library facilities moved into the town hall when it reopened after refurbishment in 2013.

Cllr Naylor this week said Silsden should benefit from the unexpected windfall from the auction.

He added: “The money has gone back into Bradford.

"It would say it had already spent this money on the town hall. But this is just one of Silsden’s assets being sold.

Cllr Naylor said it was unknown who had bought the library and office buildings, but he had been told by the one source they might have gone to a builder.

He added that the two buildings, which lie near each other in Bolton Road and Wesley Place, might be demolished to make way for new housing.

He said: “If they were three-storey houses with garages underneath, you could get a fair number of homes in there. That would be totally out of character in the area.

“The site is slap bang in the centre of town and adjacent to the cenotaph, so any building scheme has to be conscious of the location and the sensitivity.”

Cllr Naylor said the toilet block, on the corner of the Punch Bowl pub car park, would be a “difficult” site to develop due to access problems.

One suggestion for the toilet block is that it could be turned into a small shop or salon.

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