Health bosses are being urged to reopen an elderly ward at Wharfedale Hospital. Otley Town and ward Councillor Sandy Lay (Lib Dem, Otley & Yeadon) says the move is needed to ensure local residents receive good care closer to home.

Otley’s hospital closed its sole remaining elderly ward in 2011 after Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust had deemed it surplus to requirements.

Many residents at the time, led by the Support Wharfedale Hospital campaign, had called on the Trust to think again – and Coun Lay is writing to them to repeat that plea.

He said: "Recently the wife of an elderly disabled patient living in Otley contacted me to let me know that her husband had been offered rehabilitation in the Bradford area.

"When they refused they were then offered a bed in Wetherby. Eventually the hospital got the patient home but not before his wife had had to endure a number of unnecessary journeys into and out of Leeds.