A leading councillor has praised pavement repairs on one of the main pedestrian routes into the town centre.

Coun Adrian Naylor believes the £5,000 spent repairing stretches of Howden Road, Silsden, was money well spent by Bradford Council's Keighley Area Committee. Several footways across Keighley and Ilkley have been improved in recent months from the committee’s £27,000 local highways maintenance budget.

Committee chairman Steve Pullen went on a walkabout with a highways officer to decide which parts were most in need of work from the limited budget.

Coun Andrew Mallinson, a district councillor whose ward includes Silsden, last December blasted delays in carrying out the repairs, highlighting the deteriorating state of the Howden Road path. Coun Naylor, a district and town councillor, said the previously uneven Howden Road path, which posed a trip hazard, was now very smooth. He said: “It was quite a significant path for the amount of people walking over it, older people and children in pushchairs.”