BUYING up an old landfill might not appeal to many people, but it seems one such site is attracting a surprising amount of interest.

Hill Top Works in Bingley has gone on the market with a price tag of £390,000.

The 14-acre site in Walsh Lane mainly consists of a landfill which is now at capacity, but that is not what is attracting people's interest.

The site also contains a 2.5-acre waste transfer station - where rubbish can be taken for processing - and the land is being sold along with a licence to process up to 35,000 cubic metres of waste there each year.

The sale is so unusual that agent Jonathan O'Connor, of Walker Singleton, admits he found it difficult to put a price on the land as he had never sold anything of its kind before.

He said businesses often found it very difficult to establish new waste sites, so the possibility of taking over an existing one instead was proving a bit of a draw.

He said: "If someone said, 'There's a bit of land at the back of your house and we want to start transferring skip waste there,' it can be very contentious. To get a licence in the first place can be quite arduous."

The site had been in the hands of family firm Auto Spares Bingley since the late 1950s, but the current owner is now ready to retire.

Mr O'Connor said it was "very unlikely" that the site could be used for development.

He said: "The landfill element will have to lay there for some time. The remainder of the site will be used for something similar, something waste-related in one way or another."

And he said it was already attracting a lot of interest.

He said: "The response has been very positive. We have had interest from vehicle breakers, skip hire companies, existing waste transfer companies. I think it will be sold probably to someone in that field."

Mr O'Connor said the land had once been a brickworks, and the original square chimney still survived on the site.

He said it was now "quite a landmark" in the area.

He said: "I'm told the reason it is square rather than round is because of the weather conditions up there. If it's square it holds up better, because it gets a lot of wind and rain and ice."