THE residents of Addingham are outraged about what has been done with the interest from money paid over by a developer to fund affordable housing in the village. Their anger is quite understandable.

Not only has Bradford Council left the original sum sitting in a bank account for the last 16 months without providing one single affordable home, the local authority has also been creaming off the interest to use where it feels like in other council departments.

This is also true of the interest accrued on a further £359,000 Bradford Council has put away in its special 'commuted sum' bank account. And presumably the £400,000 soon to be paid over by Crest Homes for an Ilkley development will suffer the same fate.

Bradford Council has defended its actions by stating that the relatively small sum of £28,000 would have to be topped up from central funds if an affordable housing scheme was to be built with council help in the village. But until this scandalous situation was revealed by a Gazette investigation, there were no plans to build any affordable housing in the village at all, and the lump sum of £28,000 would have to be repaid to Redrow Homes in less than four years' time. Following the revelations in the Gazette, it now seems that affordable housing provision in Addingham has suddenly taken a few steps up the priority ladder at City Hall.

There is, rightly or wrongly, a perception in Addingham that Bradford Council squeezes as much money out of the residents as possible to spend in the inner city without giving back anything in return, apart from providing very basic statutory services.

Is it any wonder this perception persists when residents learn that a fund specifically intended to provide a local future for its young people has been plundered in such a cavalier fashion?

There has been a call for council accountants to come clean about exactly what the money has been spent on and the Gazette supports this request.

There has also been a call for the interest to be put back where it belongs and for the introduction of regulations to stop such an outrage happening again.

It is time for council leader Councillor Ian Greenwood and chief executive Ian Stewart to back up the reassuring speeches they delivered on separate visits to Addingham Parish Council with action and financial support.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.