Eric Pickles - a former leader of Bradford Council and now a top ranking Tory MP - has been back to his roots.

The Tory Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has visited Haworth.

He met a group of people from Bradford Cathedral Centre planting trees on communal land behind the village school.

Mr Pickles, who represented the Worth Valley ward in the 1980s and lived in Oakworth, said: "I get a tremendous feeling of nostalgia coming here and seeing people working like this.

"What I remember, and this reflects it, is the terrific sense of community and the kind of York-shire cussedness which I miss living in the south.

"I was proud to represent this area and the people who believe in direct action of which this is a great example."

Mr Pickles also visited students working at nearby Haworth Community Centre on a bricklay-ing skills project backed by Keighley company CD Construction.

He later went on to visit staff at the refurbished Carnegie Keighley library, in North Street.

The 55-year-old has been MP for Brentwood and Ongar since April 1992. He was educated at Greenhead School, Keighley.