Aims and Annual Report - Ilkley Civic Society

Charity Number 1092549

The Aims of the Society

We are a local group interested in Ilkley past and present.

We aim:

To promote high standards of planning and architecture.
To inform the public in geography, history, natural history and architecture.
To secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest in Ilkley.

We research local history through architecture, planning applications and local families.

We guide local heritage walks through the summer. We can provide individual guided walks for visiting groups by arrangement.

We give illustrated talks, e.g. lost buildings of Ilkley, schools through the years in Ilkley, from village to town and Ilkley past and present.

We are developing a digital record of photographs, postcards, maps and other data. This includes planning applications for buildings from their introduction in Ilkley in 1869.

We are investigating renamed streets, houses, lost buildings, hydros, schools, gravestones and old Ilkley families and businesses.

We welcome people sharing information and memories about Ilkley and we reply to any enquiries.

ILKLEY CIVIC SOCIETY - ANNUAL REPORT 2025-2026

Introduction

This annual report records the society’s main activities during the year, includes a statement of its accounts (available shortly) and outlines its proposals for the future.

Officers and Executive Committee

Chair: Alex Cockshott

Vice Chair: David Blackburn

Hon Secretary and Treasurer: Kate Brown

Executive Committee members: Anthony Barnett, Helen Kidman, Graham Peacock and Jan Stallworthy

Charity Commission

The Society meets the Charity Commission's public benefit criteria. The Trustees have paid due regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission regarding public benefit under both the advancement of education and the advancement of citizenship and community development headings.

Reserves Policy

The executive committee has continued a reserves policy of £500.

Key Achievements

The Society continued to run a full programme of meetings both face-to-face and on Zoom. Executive committee meetings, as well as smaller meetings to do with Planning, Friends of the Cemetery, the Local History Hub and Blue Plaques. Heritage Walks have continued well attended. We have started bi-monthly newsletters instead of quarterly.

Membership is between 80 and 90.

Heritage open days

The theme this year was architecture. We met at Ilkley’s 160 year old Station to learn more about the railway and Victorian Villas.

Design Awards

We disclosed our Design Awards in October. We gave several commendations with awards to Whitton Lodge and the reinstated fountain.

Main Activities and Public Benefit

Meetings.

Meetings included Yorkshire Water’s well-attended update in March on what they are working “behind the blue boards”. For the Ilkley Arts Festival we had a presentation on grand Victorian villas.

Exhibitions: The exhibition on the 1900 Great Flood (June/July Manor House, October Library) was well received and in March, continuing the water theme, we presented an axhibition on the Ilkley Hydros. Thanks to Nicola Higgett for providing a Hydros map.

Walks: include an exploration of changes on Leeds Road and a successful Christmas walk concluding in the Wheatley Arms.

Website – We have a new volunteer who is helping to develop our website further. We are experimenting with a Facebook page.

Finance – We are pleased to report that after much form filling we are now registered for online banking. This is making life much easier for our Treasurer, being able to pay bills by bank transfer etc.

Activity Groups:

Planning

ICS commented on 59 of the 266 applications – with recommendations for refusal and neutral comments. In the latter part of 2025, the fortnightly numbers dropped considerably and on a couple of occasions we had no applications within the town.

The major sites we’ve commented on:

Ilkley Lawn tennis & Squash club submitted two applications this year, the first for a large area of solar panels on the roof, one of the largest we have seen in the town. Secondly, an application for major changes to the layout of the grounds and some internal clubhouse changes.

Starbucks made themselves very unpopular in the town after erecting all the advertising signs for the new café without applying for planning permission. The 9m lollipop was refused by Bradford council and eventually it was removed.

Another insensitive application came from BT for an illuminated (advertising) comms Hub on The Grove. This was also refused by Bradford council but with an immediate appeal being submitted by BT. We hope the Planning Inspectorate will see the damage this would do to this premier street in the conservation area.

We are concerned about an application for 5 new houses in the Green Belt off Slates Lane - not yet decided by Bradford council.

Two more positive applications on historic buildings, Bradford council applied in a rush to itself to re-roof the manor House (listed Grade 1). The second application is for the repairs and re-use of the Old Grammar School on Church St (listed Grade2) on which works are currently taking place.

We are monitoring the impact of traffic movements caused by the redevelopment of Ilkley Grammar School.

Local History Research

Research supported the Flood exhibition and worked on the Hydros exhibition. The group continues to collect information about Ilkley shops and the goods and services they sold through time. The group receives and responds to many enquiries.

Blue Plaques

The guide map has proved very popular and has been reprinted. We hope next year to have some further Plaques.

Ilkley Cemetery

The Friends of Ilkley Cemetery continue to meet weekly on a Tuesday afternoon all year round. In addition to our main activities of tidying graves, cutting back weeds and undergrowth and litter picking we also report any issues or concerns we may spot in the Cemetery. We have also dealt with some family queries from members of the public. We are organising the work on one of the family graves which will hopefully be finished soon. We have had the Beanlands Parade gates removed for restoration and they will be back shortly.

In August Sue Stevens led a second trees walk. Copies of the guide are available from the Grove Bookshop and Ilkley Visitor Information Centre.

Look on the website to join any of these groups.

Working with Other Groups

The Society supports and works with a number of other groups, in particular Friends of King’s Hall and the Winter Garden, the Friends of the Riverside Park, the Friends of Ilkley Moor, the Ilkley Manor House Trust, Climate Action Ilkley, Ilkley in Bloom, Ilkley BID, Ilkley Neighbourhood Plan, the Bandstand Committee, Ilkley U3A and Improving Ilkley. The society is a member of the YHACS, Victorian Society and Civic Voice.

We have kept in regular contact with Ilkley Town Council, our three District Councillors and our MP. Three ICS committee members have joined the Town Council’s Neighbourhood Plan Group.

Forward Look

We are preparing to celebrate our 60^th Anniversary at the Canker Well. We are re-planting the bath from Ben Rhydding Hydro and making a heritage notice board for the small park. The celebration there is on Thursday 18 June at 2pm, followed by refreshments in The Arcade at Outside the Box.

The Local History Hub meetings will continue and develop, feeding into further heritage walks. We will continue cataloguing documents and pictures we have been given.

Work will continue on the website.

Planning and Cemetery will continue. We hope to improve access in Ilkley to cemetery records.

We have our meetings programme for 2026. We welcome suggestions for 2027?

The committee is now quite small. We would welcome some new people to come forward to join.

Thank you

Thanks to my fellow committee members in particular Kate who in addition to secretary has taken on treasurer and thanks to her tenacity we are now online banking. Also thanks to the Local History Hub and to the members who stewarded our exhibitions.