Wild swimmers' plan to convert old water treatment works in Yorkshire moors into a natural pool in jeopardy as site goes up for auction

Yorkshire Swim Works volunteers had been in negotiations with Yorkshire Water’s land and estates arm, Keyland, over the future use of the old works beneath Thornton Reservoir near Oxenhope. Their plan is to develop a naturally filtered outdoor swimming pool with sauna, cafe and eco-lodges, and Bradford Council awarded them a £4,500 grant to research the project.

Yorkshire Water retained ownership of the site after new technology made the four water purification ‘basins’ obsolete around 30 years ago, and indicated that they were prepared to speak to Yorkshire Swim Works about disposal of the land via sale, lease or asset transfer agreement.

Yet discussions appear to have ended with no resolution and the Swim Works group have now released a damning statement on their website, announcing that the site is now to be auctioned off with viewings set to begin this week.

The statement read: “We have made a massive effort to partner with Yorkshire Water to develop the land as an environmentally positive, community-owned, health and wellbeing hub for everyone, and have been met with limited co-operation.

"There have been several stages to bring the project to where it is now, and we have reached the point where a robust funding plan to buy the site is in place. This plan involves community fundraising, grants and a change of entity type, and will take several months to bring to fruition. Keyland and Yorkshire Water are aware of this, but have sadly refused to give us enough time to bring our funding plan to life.

“Keyland have consistently quoted a price of £160,000 to the community, but now are putting forward the guide price for auction of £110,000. They are selling the site with expensive liabilities, including the repair of retaining walls.

"The land is also being sold with limited access. However Yorkshire Swim Works are in positive discussions over access permissions with the farmers who own the dedicated access track to the site.

“We’ve tried to encourage Keyland and Yorkshire Water to give the land to the community, or to partner and support the project in some way, but these efforts have sadly not had the desired result.”

Caroline Kindy, who became involved with the project after selling the jewellery business she ran in Hebden Bridge, added: “We can’t understand why Keyland and Yorkshire Water would prefer to auction the site instead of supporting a community project.”

If the site fails to sell at auction, the group will make a further request to purchase it without the wall repair costs.

However, Yorkshire Water responded by saying that they had offered Swim Works an exclusivity period on the purchase of the site, which had been extended twice to allow them to raise funds. As the land management is incurring costs, a decision on its disposal needed to be made.

They said: “We’ve been in discussions with Swim Works for a few years about their proposal and offered to sell the site to them at cost value. We gave them a significant amount of time to get the funding together for the site, but due to various reasons this has not progressed. We’re now set to auction the site in July, but have told the group that we’re still happy to sell them the site before that date.”

The lot, advertised via West Yorkshire Auction House, includes the derelict Reservoir House building, which has been disused for 25 years, and is being promoted as a site suitable for housing development. Permission was granted for five homes several years ago, but has since lapsed.