SHOCK and concern has greeted the news that the 541 home High Royds redevelopment has changed hands at the last minute.

Workmen only began moving equipment onto the former Menston hospital site last Thursday but it has now emerged that the Raven Group has sold its stake in the project to Gladedale PLC.

Raven, which had been a partner with Country & Metropolitan Homes in planning the conversion, reluctantly sold to Gladedale on September 29.

Ben Krauze, who was manager at High Royds for Raven, said the reason was that Gladedale had bought out Country & Metropolitan Homes earlier this year and did not want a private partner on the scheme.

He said: "They're a public company and we're a private company. It's a very sad thing because we wanted to keep an involvement in the site. It wasn't a choice of ours, otherwise we would still be in High Royds."

Raven is still holding out hope that Gladedale will allow them to buy back the main hospital, a Grade II listed building that will become a 96-apartment assisted living complex.

With Gladedale buying out Raven's part of the project, the actual sale of High Royds from the health authority only went through on October 15.

Sales and Marketing Director for Country & Metropolitan Homes, Janis Stone, said: "The workers are in the process of setting up now. They will be putting in new roads on site and demolishing all of the modern additions to the buildings, but the Victorian buildings will be retained."

Wharfedale ward councillor and Menston resident Chris Greaves, however, has concerns.

He said: "I've got tremendous respect for Raven. They have a national reputation for doing it right. But these new people are an unknown quantity.

"They have make sure there are no significant changes. We don't want them to weasel out of things that are meant for community gain!"

Coun Greaves also hopes nothing will be done to the development to affect how it looks from the village.

Although in Menston, High Royds actually falls within the Guiseley and Rawdon Leeds City Council ward.

Councillor Graham Latty (Con, Guiseley and Rawdon) said: "I'm not pleased about this at all.

"I certainly felt a lot better about this development being in the hands of Raven because they specialise in the development of listed properties and have a record of doing things in a sympathetic and tasteful manner.

"We always knew they wouldn't do the final building of everything but I'm very disappointed because there were a lot of things I thought they would do that weren't necessarily in the small print.

"Whatever we expected of Raven we should expect of the new developer and we'll be keeping a very close eye on it.

"Because the High Royds project has been bad enough in local people's minds anyway, we just want to make sure that whatever happens is to the best effect.

"I wonder if a large public company like this will have the same delicate approach to people's feelings, we will have to wait and see."

Mr Krauze insists, however that during the process of transferring ownership Gladedale showed no desire to make any changes.

He said: "There would be a massive delay if they made changes. The council wouldn't allow it."

Mrs Stone also points out that Country & Metropolitan Homes has been involved in the site planning with Raven for the past few years.

And she emphasised the importance of parts of the scheme that will benefit the community.

Those include:

*cricket and football fields

*integrating a bus stop into the site, providing transport to and from the train station

*giving a free Metro card to residents for one year

*basing a doctor's surgery, nursery and retail units on site.

Country & Metropolitan Homes has been an established brand in Yorkshire for 13 years, and Mrs Stone says the company is now an arm of Gladedale that specialises in dealing with landmark sites and listed buildings.

"We'll be working alongside English Heritage and planners, as these buildings have quite a historical significance."

Country & Metropolitan Homes will also work alongside David Wilson Homes, who are in charge of putting up 116 new properties.

An information centre will be set up at High Royds in January so anyone interested in the project can find out more.