The 1990s 2
The 1990s 2
Wilsden Medical Centre had outgrown its Townfield premises and an outline plan had been submitted for a new centre off Crack Lane. This gave rise to discontent in the village particularly because of the steepness of Crack Lane. In 1997 a delegation from WVS met Drs. Wilson and Brown who told them that they had applied through the Community Health Services NHS Trust to build either at Crack Lane or Lingfield Road. The Lingfield Road site was turned down as being too expensive. Since then a site at Prospect Mills had become available. WVS agreed to conduct a survey of Wilsden residents. Leaflets were delivered to 1254 households, of which 628 responded. Of these almost 94% favoured the Prospect Mills site, directly on Main Street and accessible by bus. The plans for Crack Lane were withdrawn but unfortunately the doctors were unable to go ahead with the preferred option and eventually the medical centre was built on the Crooke Lane/Wellington Road site and opened in 2000. WVS proposed the name Bowers’ Field as its address in memory of the Bowers family who had previously owned the land, but the name Ling Bob Court had already been allocated. (This is rather misleading in terms of location and would have had more relevance to the Prospect Mills site.)
A building with the potential for significant impact on the village scene turned out to have an unsuspected link to the outcome of the medical centre issue. In 1986 the Methodist and United Reformed churches in Wilsden had taken the decision to amalgamate, using the URC building. Some time after the move, the former Methodist Sunday School near the junction of Crack Lane and Main Street was sold to a developer but no one seemed to know what he had in mind for the building. Its condition was a regular item in the society’s minutes, with reports of slates being removed, floorboards rotting and the risk of access by children to a dangerous space. Bradford Council officers were informed and did at least succeed in having windows boarded up and the building made secure. In April 1998 the society learned of a planning submission to demolish and replace with housing. It seems the owner, Graham Hall, had hoped that he might be able to provide the new medical centre, or alternatively divide the building into flats. Bradford Council and English Heritage opposed demolition of the grade II listed building and the council were not prepared to sell the land between the building and Crack Lane (the Crack Lane garden). The application was turned down and the situation dragged on, with the building looking ever more derelict until it was bought by local builder Noel McGurk in 2000.
Mr McGurk planned to restore the building and convert the interior to form eleven apartments. He undertook to source suitable materials to return the exterior to its original appearance, including the nearest possible equivalent to the missing roof slates which were no longer available. However there were now new obstacles to be overcome. In 2000 a zebra crossing was installed in Main Street, just south of Royd Street and in such a position that the bus stop had to be moved 50 yards from the stone bus shelter. No one had asked for this crossing, which was Bradford Council’s only response to repeated concerns about traffic volume and speed and calls for traffic calming measures. If a crossing was to be of any use, it was needed in the shopping area further down the street but the planners said road conditions on this stretch were not suitable. Now Noel McGurk was unable to get planning permission because the crossing blocked access to his site. He would need to have it moved at his expense. After much consultation with council officials, the village society organised a questionnaire to 600 houses nearest to the site. The result was 2 to 1 in favour of removing the crossing and returning the bus stop to its original position. The council conceded and removed the crossing, the whole exercise wasting money that could have been more usefully spent. A further contentious issue was the need to use the Crack Lane garden to provide parking for the apartments. This time the council was willing to sell but there were objections from some who did not want to lose the green space and who found the footpath across the garden an easier way to Crack Lane than the steep corner from Main Street. Mr McGurk undertook to build a flight of steps with a handrail at the tricky corner and also to plant trees and shrubs along the edge of the car park.
Although the village society had created the garden from a demolition site, they supported Mr McGurk’s application, believing that a car park and a restored building was better than a garden with a derelict and dangerous building beside it.
The village war memorial stands in front of the Sunday School and while the building was at its worst, the society consulted Wisden Churches Together about the idea of moving it, possibly to a site just inside Wilsden park. It was several years since a Remembrance Service had been held at the memorial and WVS member Liz Martin undertook to reinstate this. She arranged for Revd James Scantlebury from St Matthew’s to conduct the first, in November 1999 when about 100 people attended. The difficulty of assembling for a service on a main road was another factor to be considered when the question of moving the memorial was explored after this. Bradford Council favoured the move away from what was likely to become residential property but could not pay for it. The society was willing to explore grants and put in money if the move was agreed but there was a lot of opposition in the village and the plan was not pursued. From 2000, permission was granted to close the road for the duration of the service, but at least for the first few years, the society was charged over £100 for the use of the signs. Remembrance services have continued, conducted by ministers from the village churches in turn. Liz Martin arranged for poppy wreaths to be laid by representatives of the society and the village hall, one of the ward councillors and sometimes the police. Orders of service were printed by the society and Jane Callaghan, later to be a parish councillor, produced photographs and a brief history of all those named on the memorial to help focus minds on the impact of war on real individuals from the village and their families. Members of Wilsden Band played at the services until their days under that name ended and they became BD1.
