THE housing crisis affecting young people in Ilkley has been taken to the Houses of Parliament by the town's Labour MP, Ann Cryer.

Mrs Cryer has backed the Gazette's campaign for more affordable housing in the area to prevent the exodus of young people driven out of their home town by sky high house prices.

In the House of Commons this week, Mrs Cryer put the Government's Housing Minister Nick Raynsford on the spot during Question Time.

Mr Raynsford told MPs that the Government had released funds to tackle a £19 billion backlog of council housing repairs that it had inherited from the previous administration.

Mrs Cryer said: "I thank my Honourable Friend for his helpful comments. Does he believe that they will help my young constituents in Ilkley where there is a total lack of affordable houses to buy or to rent?

"When many of my young constituents in Ilkley want to set up home, they have to move away from the areas in which they were brought up and away from family and friends."

Mr Raynsford replied: "We fully understand the problems that people experience because of the shortage of affordable housing and the poor condition of the housing stock. For the provision of more affordable housing, we have doubled the allocation for the Housing Corporation for new investment through registered social landlords.

"We expect that to lead to a significant improvement in the output of affordable housing in the next three years."

Mrs Cryer is campaigning for affordable housing on the site of the former International Wool Secretariat (IWS) research centre on Valley Drive, Ilkley.

Bellway Homes has applied for planning permission to build houses on the site but has run into opposition from Bradford Council and Ilkley Parish Council's planning committee.

One application has been turned down already, but there is to be a public inquiry into Bellway's original plan to put 78 homes on the site, because the application was not determined in time by council planners.

Campaigners supporting the plan, such as Mrs Cryer, district and parish councillor Anne Hawkesworth, (Con, Ilkley) and district councillor Martin Smith (Con, Ilkley), are pinning their hopes on the outcome of the appeal which will be heard at Ilkley Town Hall next month.

If the Department of the Environment inspector overrules Bradford Council and Ilkley Parish Council, planning permission would create access to a fund of around £400,000.

Providing the money for affordable housing was one condition of Crest Homes being granted permission to build its exclusive housing sites on the former Ilkley College Campus. Although Crest has now abandoned the site, the financial commitment for affordable housing elsewhere in Ilkley has been inherited by the new developers.

The parish council's planning committee wants the IWS site retained as an employment site in the next Unitary Development Plan.

But supporters of Bellway's scheme say that the area is in the middle of a housing estate and local residents would prefer it to be turned into housing.