Store- plan developer ‘ will need to protect otters’

THE DEVELOPER behind a planned retail scheme in Shipley has been urged to make certain their proposals will not harm any otters.

Plans to build a Lidl and a drive- through Costa Coffee on the former site of Cardinal, Airedale Mills, were revealed earlier this summer, and a planning application for the development is due to be decided in October.

The site at the junction of Otley Road and Salts Mill Road is currently empty after numerous buildings belonging to Cardinal were demolished.

Submitted by Morbaine, the scheme will also include space for a possible third unit on the site.

The plans have already attracted some objections – Shipley Town Council believes it will draw business from the town centre – but now a more unusual concern has been raised about the application.

The land backs onto the River Aire, and Bradford Council’s Biodiversity Officer has urged the developers to do more to boost local riverside biodiversity – and make sure any otters living around the river are protected. In their response to the application, the officer has said: “We know otters are present within the river in the vicinity of the development and there may be other riparian protected species potentially impacted by the development.”

They suggest that work may need to be done to a riverside footpath and add: “This is likely to invoke further surveys or checks and potentially the construction of the development will need to be managed under a method statement/ supervision of an ecologist. Otters are a European protected species under the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2019 and also protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.”