Imaginative plans to transform Bradford's landmark Conditioning House are about to be submitted to Bradford Council, the Telegraph & Argus can reveal.

The scheme would allow the canal between Bradford and Shipley to pass straight through the site of the Grade II listed building.

Caddick Developments, which has owned the Cond-itioning House for seven years, is on the verge of submitting proposals to create 200 waterside apartments on the site - 140 inside the existing building and 60 new-build units.

Conditioning House, which lies on the proposed route of the canal, was once viewed as a potential obstacle to the reinstallation of the waterway.

But Knottingley-based Caddick Developments has been working closely with Bradford Council and Bradford Centre Regeneration to produce a scheme that allows the canal to pass through.

Jim Dyson, director for Caddick, said: "It's a complicated building, but the plan is to run the canal straight through the site. There's space to do it.

"The canal makes a residential development at the site quite an attractive proposition because water is most appealing.

"It's a great scheme and will make a very interesting project. We are supportive of the canal scheme."

The building, near the site of the proposed Bradford Channel Project, which will form the basin of the canal at Forster Square, has been empty for nearly two decades.

It was built around 1902 as a wool testing centre and employed hundreds of people in its heyday. Councillor Andrew Mallinson, the Council's executive member for regeneration, said: "It's fantastic that yet another developer has got the confidence to come up with a scheme that recognises the concept of the canal project."

Coun Mallinson said much of the developer interest was occurring at the Bradford end of the proposed canal rather than, as initially expected, at the Shipley end.

Coun Mallinson said a window of opportunity' to kick-start the scheme at the Shipley end disappeared recently.

It had been hoped that work to slide in a bridge to allow the railway to pass over the canal in Dockfield Road, Shipley, would be carried out in December during engineering work on the Airedale line.

But Coun Mallinon said Network Rail's plans had changed and that the opportunity had been missed for the time being.