The Wharfe water war

Dear readers – we write to you full of excitement. Today, we got a mention in the latest edition of Private Eye, who picked up our reporting on the Leeds Greens saga. We're thrilled to bits that after just a few months our work is already getting this level of national recognition. We will be framing it for the office walls, ensuring Green party member Shafique Sheikh's admittedly quite creative insult will be preserved for posterity.

On with today's story, a dispatch from the delightful spa town of Ilkley. But tensions have been bubbling up this summer as the debate over who gets to use the river Wharfe, and what they do there, has become increasingly fractious – pitting the (generally well off) residents against the partying visitors. Our writer, Olivia Williams, lives in the town and has watched it all play out over the summer.

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The round-up:

🚮 What’s your idea of a cultural day out? Theatre? Museum? How about a jaunt to the local tip? So seems to go the thinking at Bradford council, where the new Reform administration has proposed diverting £400,000 worth of money set aside for cultural activities into reopening the Sugden End Household Waste Recycling Centre (Local Democracy Reporting Service). Andrew Judson, deputy leader, said “Labour made a big mistake closing the tip,” but Imran Khan, leader of the Labour group countered: “Will pulling this money have an impact? Of course it will. You’re taking it from these communities.”

👺 There was terror in Batley on Monday after an individual dressed as Michael Myers was videoed creepily stalking the streets. West Yorkshire Police received a call at 4.50pm that day reporting a man “in a costume acting suspiciously” on Manor Way, reports Yorkshire Live. The video was shared in the “Batley Matters” Facebook group and sparked anger among locals. Police confirmed a 16-year-old boy was spoken to about the matter but that “no offences were reported”.

🏡 A company has been ordered to demolish holiday homes and plant new trees in a Keighley woodland after a convoluted planning enforcement battle, the Yorkshire Post reports. The landowners, Turkish company Azara Gid San, bought the £1.05 million plot in Silsden two years ago, but argued that the development stems back longer than four years, making them immune — something the planning inspectorate didn’t accept. They were accused of chopping down hundreds of trees in the ancient woodland in the process.

🛁 A GPS tracker hidden in a hot tub became a fly-tipper’s downfall thanks to a clever sting, resulting in 26-year-old Kacper Kruk having to pay almost £2,500, the YEP reports. Kirklees Magistrates Court heard how Wakefield Council called up a number suspected of fly-tipping and requested that Kruk come and take the ill-fated tub away. He did, plonking it next to some bins in Belle Vue 45 minutes later. Officers then reeled him in by booking his services a second time. Kruk, whose solicitor claimed he didn’t fully understand the rules, pleaded guilty. 

The Wharfe water war

By Olivia Williams

Wafts of vape smoke and peals of laughter wash over me as I navigate the pram over yet another tree root. It’s August, the fifth heatwave of the summer, and I’m following in the wake of a gang of bikini-clad teenagers along a dusty footpath skirting sun-baked playing fields. We hear the beach before it comes into view. The jarring notes of multiple dance tracks from rival speakers are rendered tinny and indiscernible. Shrieks, shouts, laughter, and the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the water.

The path bends to the left to reveal crowds of tanned teens reclining on the exposed pebbly banks of the drought-stricken River Wharfe. Dozens are paddling, swimming, and floating in the water. Boisterous boys jostle for space on the suspension bridge as the bravest few leap from the railings into the murky water below. Beach towels, rubber rings, crates, cans, bottles, disposable barbecues, and pizza boxes are strewn amongst the crowd. It’s A-Level results day, and the party is in full swing on Ilkley’s riverbanks.

Overnight, the music fades and the crowds disperse, but piles of rubbish remain on the beach while the murky water creeps along its course. Yet on these riverbanks, a double crisis is unfolding. There’s the highly visible one: the clash over litter that pits the the town’s well-heeled population against massed visitors. And there’s the invisible one — the systemic polluting of the water itself.

The morning after results day, the swimsuits and suntans have disappeared, replaced with hi-viz jackets and litter pickers: the clean-up operation is underway. While beachgoers come here to relax or celebrate, the volunteers of Litter Free Ilkley are working overtime, running twice-daily emergency sweeps of the riverside. In July alone, the group collected 345 bags of waste.

“We have been out early this morning, working with the street cleaning team from Bradford Council to clear the riverside area around the suspension bridge,” says Chris Creighton, a lead volunteer for the group. “49 bags of rubbish removed, including 3 bags of towels to be donated to a homeless charity. This is beyond littering, it is deliberate trashing of our local environment [that] was cleared only 24 hours ago. It has to stop.”

Photos of the day’s excesses hit local forums: bulging purple Bradford Council bin bags, nitrous oxide canisters and spent disposable barbecues piled high on the riverside path. The community’s patience is evaporating. “I genuinely can’t comprehend the sheer idiocy, ignorance, stupidity of people,” one local posted online. 

The ongoing scourge of litter has even provoked a radical debate within the affluent LS29 postcode: should the town stop cleaning up after its visitors altogether?