Planners are taking action against the owner of a former pub in Bradford where old vehicles are being stored without permission.

Cars are packed on to a yard behind the former Reservoir pub in Allerton Road, a patch of land described as having a “previously open and green character”.

Bradford Council’s planning enforcement officers say the use of the land, and an unauthorised entrance over a grass verge, is degrading the land and putting the safety of pedestrians at risk.

Officers have now started a formal enforcement process against the landowner, who has not been identified.

They have written to the owner demanding that the vehicles be removed within a set time. If this demand is not carried out, the Council can prosecute the landowner for failing to comply with the notice, which could come with a fine of up to £20,000.

A report has now gone to the Bradford Area Planning Panel about the problems at the site.

The report said the Council had been sending letters to the landowner raising concerns about the use of the site, but had so far received no replies and the landowner had done nothing to address the problem.

Planners have also raised concerns about an unauthorised vehicle entrance which has been created at the back of the yard. Cars are being taken on and off the site over a grass verge, near a busy junction on Rhodesway.

This entrance was putting motorists and pedestrians at risk and the Council’s highways team had been informed, the report said.

In April, the Telegraph & Argus reported that the Environment Agency was investigating whether an unlicensed breaker’s yard was being run from the former pub, after concerned locals raised the alarm.

Then, the agency said it appeared the site did not hold four separate documents required by anyone running a vehicle breaker’s yard. But the planners’ new report said vehicles were not being taken apart at the site, only stored.

Ward Councillor Carol Thirkill (Lab, Clayton and Fairweather Green), who originally asked officers to investigate, said the matter was proving to be a long and drawn-out process.

e-mail: claire.armstrong@telegraphandargus.co.uk