OLD wastewater settlement tanks could be removed to make way for new housing as part of major plans to redevelop parts of the Esholt Water Treatment Works near Baildon.

A public consultation event at Esholt Sports and Leisure Club was told that large areas of land previously used by Yorkshire Water were now redundant and unused due to technological advances at the site, allowing it to operate “cleaner, faster, and smarter.”

Around 50 acres are said to be surplus to the plant’s requirements, and the firm said it “felt a responsibility to put the land to positive use”, stating that the biggest development could see an area of former filter beds at the south end of the site turned into a new industrial estate.

Yorkshire Water and Keyland Developments Ltd have assembled a team to generate ideas for the future use of the vacant land, and the project team said it wanted feedback from local residents to help inform the details of the scheme, which they described as a “beacon of positive living” on a brownfield site.

A spokesman said that the new housing would be contained on an 11-acre plot near Esholt, and would not go outside the boundary of the area currently containing the settlement tanks.

He told the event: “We want to create an exemplar residential development using the site of the existing settlement tanks.

“We want to break those harsh, solid concrete boundaries that currently surround the settlement tanks and invite nature back in. We don’t want to create a bog-standard development, this scheme is conceived in a way that really looks at sustainability, biodiversity, and most importantly, has community at its heart.”

Luke Axe, from Keyland, did not confirm the number of houses involved in the project, but said they would be “low-density and landscape-led”, adding that the site had the space to potentially accommodate “100 plus” new properties.

On the plans for an industrial estate, which would be housed in a large area on the Idle and Thackley side of the site, the event was told: “Our ambition is to replace the filter beds with a new centre for innovative employment, this will create a mixture of high-quality working environments, that will be designed to sit well with the landscape.”

Faced with questions from attendees, developers acknowledged that access to the site was “critical”, and said they wanted to work to “rationalise traffic issues” and improve parking facilities in Esholt village, also outlining plans to develop a network of foot and cycle paths.

Follow-up consultation events will be held at the club at 2pm and 6pm on July 18. For details, see esholtpositiveliving.co.uk.