Local people have been left outraged after a Bradford Council contractor mistakenly pumped concrete into a beck where trout breed, destroying both the pool and its wildlife.
Addingham Environment Group acted swiftly when they discovered the highways work being carried out on Monday, July 3, requesting urgent contact from Bradford Council and the Environment Agency.
They told the Ilkley Gazette: "Sadly and outrageously this morning a Bradford Council contractor has been pumping concrete into the trout pool on Back Beck just downstream of Bridge 55 in a very much misguided attempt to shore up Back Beck Lane at that point. The pool and its inhabitants have largely been destroyed. The pumping has now been stopped. Our Parish Clerk is taking up the issue with Bradford. This is one of the very few places in the village that our brown trout make redds.”
They later added: “A number of us have now spent sometime this morning trying to sort things out. Everyone accepts that a serious mistake has been made and Bradford Council and the Contractor have agreed to re-design the scheme that makes the road structurally safe on the one hand and minimises damage to wildlife especially brown trout habitat on the other. So work will continue with new concrete added but held behind a retaining curtain and the concrete that now fills the pool dug out to restore the pool to its original shape and depth. Once complete it will take some time to re-naturalise and we may not see trout back there for a long time, but it is probably the best that can now be achieved. Overall this has been a failure of communication and a failure to carry out an environmental impact assessment on behalf of Bradford Highways department.”
Robbie Moore MP said:
“It is quite frankly shocking to learn what has happened at Back Beck as a result of serious mistakes from both Bradford Council and its contractor. The destruction of this vital habitat and its wildlife should never have happened as an environmental impact assessment should have been carried out in full by Bradford Highways department.
Whilst remediation works are now underway to restore the pool, re-naturalising this habitat will not be an easy task. I have been in contact with Bradford Council to ensure a thorough investigation into the incident takes place and to ensure that proper measures to restore this pool are enacted at pace and with proper regard to the local environment.
I commend the Addingham Environment Group for their continuing dedication to our local ecosystems and it is just so frustrating that these recent actions have undone a huge amount of good work"
