A Keighley Town Councillor believes it has a solution to the town’s long waiting lists for allotments, but says Bradford Council is unwilling to help.

Coun Brian Morris has identified several small sites around the town he feels would be ideal for allotments and could cut down the waiting list that stands at more than 100 names.

They include sites in Oakworth, Woodhouse and Highfields.

The town council was given responsibility for providing allotments in 2005. This included finding new sites but Coun Morris says one of their largest assets, 4.15 acres of land at Hogg Holes, is not suitable for this. He hoped Bradford Council would take them up on an offer to swap the ownership of this site for various other pieces of Council-owned land, but little progress has been made since the offer.

The chairman of the town’s allotments committee, Coun Morris’ hopes were buoyed after reading a Telegraph & Argus article in August about high allotment waiting lists which included a quote from Bradford Council operational estate manager Belinda Gaynor that read: “We are always happy to talk to groups with appropriate skills and resources about proposals to create allotments or community growing areas on suitable unused sites in the district.”

Coun Morris felt the town council could be such a “skilled group” and said a lack of progress made this statement an empty promise.

He said: “Hogg Holes is a bit boggy, so what I asked was could we exchange this land for pieces of land amounting to the same acreage? We thought this would help provide allotments in areas where there aren’t any.

“We took over allotments from the district council in 2005 and got them from derelict to an award-winning standard.

“The people of Keighley have the right to an allotment and we could demolish the waiting list completely if they would exchange this land. We could even offer some to people on the waiting lists in Haworth or Silsden.

“We just can’t get Bradford to look at the idea favourably. I don’t know why they keep throwing obstacles in our way. It seems like what they said before were just words to stop people from complaining. We have tried to work with them, but it seems like it’s a one way street.”

In response, Mrs Gaynor said: “We are happy to talk to groups about proposals they may have for surplus or other Council land but these have to be weighed up against our own existing and future requirements for the land.”