COOPLANDS bakery has been granted permission to plans to open a branch in the centre of Ilkley.

The Scarborough based company had applied for planning permission for signage and a new shop front for the former Hays Travel unit on Brook Street late last year.

The application has now been approved by Bradford Council - but only after the company dropped plans to install a roller shutter on the building.

The unit lies within the Ilkley Conservation Area, and Conservation officers had said the shutter would go against council policy, and harm the Conservation Area.

‘No change’ to roller shutters policy - meeting told

Bradford Council's roller shutter policy discourages solid external shutters being installed on shops, claiming the security features have a "deadening effect" on the high street when businesses are shut.

Once the shutter was removed from the plan, officers said: "The previously planned shutter has now been deleted from the scheme which is a positive step and the addition of a retractable awning here would not be resisted."

Despite having numerous branches in the North East and elsewhere in West Yorkshire, the branch would be the only Cooplands in the Bradford District.

There have been branches in the district in the past, but these shut some time ago. The company has announced plans to open a number of new branches in the UK last year, and this is the first new branch planned for Bradford.