A CLOSED Baildon pub will become a cycling-themed arts hub in time for the Tour De Yorkshire.

Arts group Skippko has been given a temporary lease of the Little Blue Orange Pub in Otley Road, which shut last year.

It plans to use the public’s help to turn the blank canvas into a celebration of cycling, just in time for the last day of the race, which passes through Baildon on April 30.

The group has asked for work that relates to Yorkshire and memories of cycling, from photographs of people with their first bikes to custom bike helmets.

The exhibition will be open to the public on April 30 for people to see before or after the race passes by.

It is one of a number of cycling-themed events planned for when the race comes to Bradford.

On the day the race will start from City Park with the route taking the riders through towns and villages, including Saltaire, Baildon, Haworth, Queensbury and Oxenhope, before the route heads to the finish in Sheffield.

Skippko’s Blank Canvas project started five years ago in Leeds. Landlords and agents with vacant properties let them on a temporary basis to the charity, which then uses them to run a variety of projects, from film screenings to practical art sessions.

Once the race is over, the group will offer free studio space at the Baildon pub in May for artists who wish to make work in response to the exhibition, or to develop any of the work they have submitted.

New works created, plus the work of local children and community groups, will be added to the exhibition and open to the public during the Saltaire Arts Trail, which takes place during the weekend of May 27-29.

In June there will be further opportunities for artists, local groups and schools to use the spaces to create installations, performance and visual art works.

The group then plans to have a final event or exhibition at the pub at the end of June.

Skippko is now looking for volunteers to help run the exhibitions.

Anyone with an idea for the space can contact Cath Brooke on 0113 2345355 or by emailing cath.skippko@gmail.com

Last year Bradford Council granted planning permission to The Little Blue Orange Co to demolish the pub and replace it with nine apartments and five houses, but work has yet to start.

The pub is not the only building Skippko has taken on in the run up to the cycle race.

Last month the group helped re-open a long empty retail unit on Hall Ings, at the bottom of the NCP car park.

The large space was transformed into an indoor cycling track, arts space and base for Bradford Disability Cycling Club, as well as a place where cycle commuters can store their bikes.

Skippko took on the space on a three year temporary lease, and the unit is being used by the cycling club, based in Lister Park, to run training sessions for members.

Vinyl signs on the shop’s windows have now been replaced with bike-themed artwork, and new signs proclaiming Bradford the “Capital of Cycling”.