Annual reports from previous five years
 Annual reports are prepared by the Hon Secretary in time for Annual General Meetings, normally held in April or May. The annual reports for the previous five years are given below.
Report: 2002-2003
With the passing of another year, our sixth, Otley Conservation Task Force can with pride claim some of the credit for bringing about the long-awaited improvement in general attitude to conservation that is being experienced in the town. The most obvious sign of our influence is in the content of the Otley Conservation Area Appraisal consultation paper published by Leeds City Council Department of Planning and Environment in February of this year. Our support work for the appraisal has been publicly acknowledged at the Annual General Meeting of Otley Town Partnership in December 2002, and again at the Otley Conservation Area Appraisal workshop this month. During 2002, members of Otley Conservation Task Force carried out a survey of shop fronts and signs in the main town centre thoroughfares and presented a report to Otley Town Council. Our representative on the Environment Steering Group of Otley Town Partnership has taken part in exercises such as identifying the major potential sites in the town for development and their relationship with the way the town works. We have contributed in a small way to The Courthouse Project by supporting its proposal to bring the former Magistrates’ Court building of 1875 back into use.
There have, however, been some disappointments, the most important being the loss of North Parade Board School to the community after 122 years of continuous service to the town. This grade II listed building, a thriving school this time last year with the presumption of future conversion to a community use, instead now lies forlorn and scarred by unrestrained vandalism. Other disappointments, smaller in scale but nevertheless just as important in their way, include the barn on Crow Lane, which never got its stone slate roof back, and the continued dereliction of buildings like the former St Joseph’s Infant School.
Challenges for the next year are difficult to foresee with clarity. We could imagine there might be an involvement with the fate of the North Parade Board School. We might consider the next effective step following adoption of the re-appraised Otley Conservation Area – could this be, for example, the production of a contemporary guide to the buildings of the Conservation Area to complement some of Otley Museum’s historical work? We will certainly be arguing the cases for conservation where plans are presented that threaten the town’s distinctive buildings and the spaces around them that make their settings. Whatever Otley Conservation Task Force tackles in the coming year will be done with gratification in knowing that our influence will continue to be felt for the benefit of the town’s historical built attributes and ultimately for the benefit of all who live and work in the town.
Report: 2003-2004
The year to the start of April 2004 has been one of encouragement. We have seen, at last, the adoption of Otley Conservation Area Appraisal (which is now part of Leeds City Council’s supplementary planning guidance), and some of the Market Towns Initiative projects involving our built heritage are coming to fruition. The Courthouse Project, due for completion in May, and the riverside regeneration (for which we have provided active support through our affiliation to Otley Town Partnership and have studied certain buildings) spring to mind. Manchester Square has seen the return of a maypole and a vast improvement of the street surfacing there. The new hospital is a step closer to completion, with (it is to be hoped) the promise of a sensitive conversion of the old workhouse buildings not too far away. Otley Parish Church has raised the funds it needed to restore the East Window. Otley Conservation Task Force members have had a hand to a lesser or greater extent in nearly all of this...
Despite our increasing influence, there are still no schemes on site that would bring the several abandoned Victorian school buildings back into use. Owing to arson, we lost the tannery on Gay Lane, stone buildings continue to be altered in an unsympathetic manner, open spaces continue to be filled in, and shop fronts remain vulnerable (Quantrill’s, for example, was destroyed despite refusal of permission). But we have at our disposal, the new supplementary planning guidance, which must be exercised if it is to exhibit its strength.
The coming year will see Otley Conservation Task Force embark on a widening of its influence. We are organising two walks during Otley Walking Festival in June that will provide an insight to the workings of Otley Conservation Area. In September, we hope to take part in the Heritage Open Days event (a Europe-wide initiative, which in the UK is being masterminded by the Civic Trust movement). We should continue to prepare articles for local journals (like “Otley Matters” last November, and “Otley – Past, Present and Future – twenty Five Years On” in 2002) and contribute to public consultations. We should continue to foster links with environmentally-orientated groups like “Leeds Voice” (with whom we have worked on conservation issues in Otley).
But there is an important ingredient: people. Our members hold the key to success, and can ultimately unlock the essence of Otley waiting to be discovered in its stone walls, slate roofs, streets and yards, so that the people that live and work in this town can truly appreciate what they have on their doorstep.
Report: 2004-2005
As Otley bade an untimely farewell to its conservation “champion” and to our founder, Phil Coyne, Otley Conservation Task Force progresses to maturity. With this transition, we turn to meet the challenges of twenty-first century conservation. The Market Towns Initiative (MTI) venture, to which Phil was so great an inspiration, came to an end in March 2005. It created a mechanism that has either helped to realise projects like revitalisation of Otley Courthouse or formulated frameworks like the Otley Riverside vision statement. The Courthouse Project showed that modern development can be effectively undertaken in a manner appropriate to Otley Conservation Area. But more than this, MTI left a legacy that should bring continued conservation in the town for many years to come, either through the Riverside vision or by means of having raised the profile of the town and its distinctive architecture.
It is up to all of us, and certainly Otley Conservation Task Force, to nudge the process further in the right direction. Should we be more influential in rescue work, such as salvaging what Otley Civic Centre has to offer in its building, and fashioning repairs to the Jubilee Clock? Ought we be identifying traditional buildings and spaces that would benefit from further investment as part of a greater regeneration programme post-MTI? What can we do to ensure the best conservation of the now-empty Wharfedale Union workhouse is afforded? Should we broaden our remit by promoting new, appropriate building work in Otley Conservation Area? How can we do what we do more effectively?
On balance, the last year (our eighth) was successful. We conducted walks in Otley Conservation Area for Otley Walking Festival in June and Heritage Open Days in September, and we have striven to conserve our built heritage by pressing for reinstatement of the kissing gate on Billams Hill and helping to unlock the door to the future of Otley Lodge. But time moves on, and success does not mark the end of the story. The debate about our future (whether it is to continue as we are or become aligned with the Civic Society movement) has resurfaced. This arose out of the Heritage Open Days event in September (promoted by Leeds Civic Trust) and a chance dialogue with Yorkshire and Humber Association of Civic Societies in November. As a result, members have been exploring the advantages that conversion to a civic society (for example) would have to offer – and, inevitably, the formality it would bring. Further, our venue since the start has been Otley Civic Centre but with uncertainty over its future this might change, and our first-ever meeting elsewhere took place in March.
Above all, Otley Conservation Task Force is continuing to seek the best for traditional Otley. As Yorkshire’s poet Ian McMillan said at a recent lecture in Leeds, “The best kinds of place tell you ‘who you are’.” If our influence is ever to be measured in the actions we undertake, we should at least ponder this maxim.
Report: 2005-06
Embarking on the tenth year of Otley Conservation Task Force’s existence is a frightening thought. But in that time we have achieved a lot despite our small number, and the last year has been no exception, with the year being one of consolidation more than growth. Some of the issues that attracted our main attention this time last year are still there: the kissing gate on Billams Hill, what to do with our relationship with the Civic Society movement and securing the future of Otley Lodge have not progressed, but the Jubilee Clock was restored properly to its original condition (see photograph, above right). Otley Mills lost the chimney stack through unauthorised demolition and a dreadful scheme for redevelopment of Old Hall Laundry was given permission, but destruction of the setting of Silver Mill by infill development was averted through a short but concerted campaign in which the strength of Otley Conservation Area Appraisal was asserted. Our second successful contribution to Otley Walking Festival took place in June, and holding a stand at Otley Green Fair in March appears to have been effective in telling the general public about the importance of conservation to Otley.
Consolidation seems therefore to have been a necessary phase after the euphoria of adoption of Otley Conservation Area Appraisal and finalisation of the Otley Riverside vision statement. In this coming year, putting flesh on the framework of conservation in the town must undoubtedly continue. Otley Conservation Task Force must drive home the implications of the Otley Conservation Area Appraisal documentation to developers and their architects, planners, councillors and the general public. It is not acceptable to permit development without proper reference to it, or worse, improper interpretation of its meaning. We owe it to the people of Otley to justify the time and effort spent by Leeds City Council and their advisers on researching and preparing the documentation between 1997 and 2003. If we fail to carry out this task, then we risk a return to the poor quality of plans and proposals for alterations to historic buildings and their settings that we had become accustomed to at the time of our foundation.
It is time that the futures of buildings that were being discussed at the time of our AGM two years ago were determined. In addition to continued consolidation, therefore, Otley Conservation Task Force must also use its vigour to bring them back to life in the coming year. It is not difficult to predict that some of the biggest schemes we have ever seen in Otley Conservation Area could materialise this year: Garnetts’ Mill and Ashfield Works being two of them. In addition, the former Wharfedale Union Workhouse and its infirmary are now in the hands of a developer: what will happen here this year?
Report: 2006-07
It is now ten years since Phil Coyne founded Otley Conservation Task Force, and sad that Phil did not live to see this anniversary.
A review of the last decade reminds us that we took part in the thee-year Conservation Area Partnership Scheme (CAPS) set up by Leeds City Council (LCC) and English Heritage in 1998 and that we contributed to Otley Conservation Area Appraisal adopted in 2004. We saved several important buildings including Wharfedale Union workhouse and Otley Liberal Club from certain demolition and we developed links with the organisations and groups in and around Otley that would shape the development of the town. Of less visible but nevertheless significant importance has been the regular commenting on planning applications and raising of public awareness that have been our members’ day-to-day work. In the last two or three years, our emphasis has been to try to shape those policies that should enhance and manage Otley Conservation Area by building on the conservation area appraisal of 2004, and to defeat those that might ruin it.
Since April 2006, our members have updated and presented the two walks prepared in previous years for Heritage Open Days and Otley Walking Festival, and we took part in conferences hosted by Yorkshire and Humber Association of Civic Societies (YHACS) and Leeds Civic Trust (LCT). Our links particularly with YHACS have been very useful in keeping us up to date with forthcoming changes to the planning system. We have taken part in the Leeds Statement of Community Involvement (SCI) consultation process, which has resulted in an improved commitment from LCC with regard to inter-departmental consultation and engagement with local groups and stakeholders. Decisions founded on spurious health and safety advice and imposed on the town have been a major problem with managing the conservation area this year. The steady erosion of ironwork from our streets looks set to continue, with the current removal of the last remaining cast-iron lamp posts now in hand because they are apparently a public liability risk and the ominous spectre of Otley’s beautiful riverside being fenced off as part of a grey and dull safety regime to be imposed on us all in case someone should ever fall into the water. On a positive note, enforcement action and good planning decisions have seen welcome developments, including improvements to the replaced Quantrill’s shop front which are to be commended. It also looks as if the kissing gate on Billams Hill will at last be re-erected at the end of Otley Bridge.
We begin the next ten years with the granting of finance from Otley Town Council, which will enable us to embark on new project work. In recent years, we have struck up a relationship with the civic societies movement, and we hope this can be developed in the future. We therefore have a firm footing on which to expand our achievements, especially now the world has turned in our direction and is following the sound principles of care of the environment and sustainability in development. |
