THE man charged with providing cheaper homes for young people in Ilkley made a plea to residents this week to help him spend almost half a million pounds.

"I want you to help me find a site for the provision of social housing or affordable homes," said Shabir Mohammed, Bradford's housing association manager.

Mr Mohammed's department will now have five years to find a site in Ilkley where houses for rent can be built and taken over by a housing association.

Jim Shephard, project controller for the Home Housing Association, said such houses would be rented out at a fraction of the cost of privately rented homes.

He said: "Provision of affordable housing in lower Wharfedale is identified as a key priority in Bradford Council's Housing Strategy Statement. The council has asked Home Housing to look at all opportunities to provide affordable housing in Wharfedale."

Mr Shephard said that the housing association had just bought two three-bedroom houses in Colbert Avenue, Ilkley, and once they had been modernised at a cost of around £16,000 each, they would be available for rent at around £63-a-week. The cost of a privately rented similar house in Ilkley can be as much at £150-a-week, resulting in an exodus of young people from the area who can't afford to live in their home town.

Mr Mohammed said that 12 'affordable' homes would be built as part of the Bellway development on the former International Wool Secretariat (IWS) research and development centre site on Valley Drive.

But those houses would be provided by the developer in conjunction with the housing association, leaving £440,000 of affordable housing money still in the kitty to be spent in Ilkley. The money is being provided by Miller Homes which has taken over the Ilkley College site development from Crest Homes.

Mr Mohammed said that if he were unable to find a suitable site in Ilkley for the money to be spent on new houses he would consider buying existing properties to make over to housing associations. "People born here and brought up here who are on lower incomes need to have access to affordable homes," said Mr Mohammed.

And he revealed that his department's negotiations with Bellway Homes to provide 15 rented flats on the IWS site had been scuppered by planners who tried to block the whole development.

Supported by Ilkley Parish Council's planning committee, which wanted the site left as an 'employment' site, the Keighley planning panel's decision to refuse planning permission led to an appeal and an expensive public inquiry. Following the inquiry, the Department of the Environment inspector overturned the decision but in her judgment document specified that the affordable housing element would have to be in the form of 'shared ownership' housing.

Mr Mohammed told a meeting of Ilkley Parish Council's planning committee that he would have preferred to see rented accommodation on the site because it could not be resold for profit if it remained the property of the housing association.

Since the 1980s, local authorities have been forbidden by law from building their own houses for rent and have to work in partnership with housing associations to provide social housing.

Mr Mohammed said he was still hoping to renegotiate the conditions but had been told that the inspector's decision was final.

"Our preference is for rent because rented units stay with the housing association which lets them to the person with most need," said Mr Mohammed.

Mr Shephard told the meeting that the majority, if not all, of the applications for housing authority subsidised accommodation in the area were coming from Ilkley's housing office.

He said that because of a larger grant from the Government's Housing Corporation, negotiated by Mr Mohammed, the Home Housing Association had been able to buy seven properties in the Lower Wharfedale area this year to let to people on lower incomes.