PLANS to open a new indoor karting centre in Bradford have been submitted to Bradford Council.

The racing track will be situated in Beckside Business Park in Beckside Road, Lidget Green, if successful.

The application has been submitted by Go Karting for Fun Ltd, who operate under the name TeamSport, which is one of the largest indoor go karting companies in the UK.

It operates 22 sites around the country, including in Leeds, Nottingham, Liverpool and London, and has been running karting tracks for the past 25 years.

The 4,445 square metre site is currently vacant having previously been used by Italian Furniture Co for storage.

Plans to turn the unit into an indoor football centre were approved in January 2016 before being withdrawn, and an application to open an indoor trampolining park in a different unit at the site was approved in May this year.

If successful, TeamSport has said the centre would create around 40 jobs, with staff recruited from the local area, and offers training to young people.

In the planning statement, it said: “TeamSport employ a large number of 16 to 25-year-old employees, often unskilled with limited qualifications.

“They run specific programmes with a national NVQ provider, providing formal, structured learning and development programmes to all employees, ranging from customer service, team leadership and motor mechanics up to level four qualifications in management.”

Full time roles will be at management level, with part-time jobs as marshals, mechanics, and receptionists.

The centres also support local charities and work with local schools and youth inclusion programmes for children with behavioural issues to improve children’s attitude and school attendance.

In the centre, alongside the track there will be a staff room, store room, function room, changing rooms and toilets with disabled facilities, and spectator areas, and the car park will be reconfigured to provide 50 parking bays, including three disabled spaces, and bicycle parking for up to eight bikes.

In the planning statement, TeamSport said the change of the unit to a go karting centre should be approved as “the principle of leisure use has been considered acceptable through the approval of an application for indoor football pitches and the approval of an application for an indoor trampoline park nearby”.

It added: “The proposal with make sustainable use of a site which is currently underutilised and not being used to its full potential.

“It can operate without causing unacceptable harm to neighbouring occupiers or amenity..”

The centre would be open from 9am to 11pm, seven days a week, and TeamSport said it would not be detrimental to nearby transport due to the limited number of drivers per race, and its close proximity to public transport links.

It also said the noise produced by the go karts would not have a detrimental effect on the surrounding area, and that TeamSport has never received a complaint from local residents and businesses in its 25 years of operating go karting tracks.