Community group hopes for building transfer

Members of Luddenden Foot Community Association will attend a meeting at Northgate House in Halifax to find out whether the council decides to sign over ownership of the building on Station Road to the Association.

The centre is home to a variety of groups including the Women's Institute, a playgroup, Girl Guides and local football teams.

With the imminent closure of the Methodist Church in Luddenden, meeting places in the village are at a premium.

Association chairman Jill Smith-Moorhouse said that by transferring the civic centre to the association it would be able to approach the Big Lottery Fund for money to refurbish the building.

She said: ''Everyone is very keen to get this project moving and all are looking forward to greatly improved facilities.

''We are also trying to promote the sporting side of things. There's a great need to get kids off the street and into something more constructive. We are desperate to get the sports facilities updated. We will have to keep our fingers crossed and wait and see.''

Ideas under consideration include creating a small museum in the centre to hold archive material from the British Legion and Boys' Brigade. There is also talk of incorporating a library into the building.

Meanwhile the story of Luddenden Foot has been told in a book by Sheena Ellwood who grew up in the village which is hemmed into the valley bottom by the Midgley, Sowerby and Warley hillsides.

The first part of the book details how the village's central position on road, canal, river and road routes linking worsted and woollen West Yorkshire with cotton East Lancashire, placed it at the heart of changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution.

At The Foot Of The Lud – A History of Luddenden Foot is published by Royd Press at 9.99 and is available from the Fred Wade bookshop in Halifax.