One of Britain's top textile bosses has been fined £9,800 after 25 trees were chopped down without permission on the site of a proposed care centre.

Brian Whitaker, senior vice-president of the Confederation of British Wool Textiles, ordered the felling of the trees nearly a year ago on the site of the former Grove Convalescent Hospital at Ilkley.

He is the chairman of a charity, the Abbeyfield Ilkley Society, which plans to build a £7.5 million integrated care centre on the site.

The trees, including cypress, willow and sycamore, were either protected by preservation orders or were in a conservation area. Permission was needed before anything could be done to them.

Whitaker, of Wine Beck Farm, Addingham, near Ilkley, denied all 25 charges brought by Bradford Council but was convicted. He was told to pay £2,677 costs in addition to the fine.

The court heard that a council enforcement officer, Ian Horsfall, saw a man cutting down trees at the site and Whittaker afterwards made certain admissions about the felling.

Prosecutor Ian Newbon claimed the offences amounted to a "serious loss of amenity".

The magistrates rejected various legal submissions, and defence counsel John Lodge said his client would not be called to give evidence.

After the verdicts were announced, Mr Lodge said in mitigation that Whitaker had not acted out of greed but had jumped the gun and cut corners.

"It is no more and no less than over-enthusiasm by an enthusiastic man.''

The site had become "a tip", with squatters moving in, and the proposed care centre would enhance the area rather than be detrimental to it.

"It is the Abbeyfield Society providing an asset for one of the most beautiful parts of this city, in any event,'' said Mr Lodge.

Whitaker, the managing director and owner of a large wool company, was the "driving force'' of a project to provide homes for elderly people in need of support but not hospitalisation.

The great danger in leaving the land with extensive ground cover was that vandals, squatters and drug users would move in behind it.

In a statement issued after the hearing, Whittaker's solicitor, Robin Irvine, said his client was "particularly indignant and displeased'' at being singled out for prosecution.

"It does nothing to enhance the position of the local authority and I can say that an appeal is being considered," he added.

"My client and his committee had been working hand in hand with the planning authorities and it is regrettable, through misunderstanding or mistake, that the trees were removed at an earlier stage than they ought to have been removed.

"It should be noted that the trees, or some of them, would have been the subject of an application to remove and the local authority would in all probability have agreed to that."

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