Aldi part of £10m retail scheme to be be built near pub

TWO BUILDINGS that sandwich a long-established pub will be demolished as part of a £10m retail development.

Bradford Council granted planning permission for a new retail development, anchored by an Aldi, in Keighley town centre.

The development will be built on a long empty site off East Parade, and listed in the conditions for the approval is the Cricketers Arms, a pub on Coney Lane dating back to the 1870s.

Currently the Cricketers is between two buildings, one part demolished and the other an empty four-storey warehouse building that towers over the pub.

A condition of the approval is that the two industrial buildings are demolished, and that work is done to strengthen the walls of the Cricketers.

It will mean the pub will go from standing between two buildings on a long neglected street to being on the doorstep of one of the biggest regeneration schemes in Keighley.

The pub was known as the Sportsman until Keighley brewery Timothy Taylor’s purchased it in 1872 and changed it name. It was then taken on by Worth Inns in 1998.

The development, submitted by Aldi, will see the discount supermarket moving from its current site on Gresley Road into a larger unit.

There will be a ‘drive-thru’ coffee shop on the Gresley Road side of the site, three small shops facing onto East Parade, and another retail unit, the largest building on the site, on Coney Lane, next to the Cricketers.

The site was once earmarked for the Aire Valley Shopping Centre – a long-stalled development that would have included shops, restaurants and a cinema.

Aldi submitted its plans for the development early last year.