PLANS to return a former mill site in Keighley to industrial use have been approved.

Devonshire Mills was constructed in 1909 as one of the town’s many industrial buildings.

But the mill was demolished in 2005, and the West Lane plot has remained empty since.

In the summer, an application to build two, two-storey industrial units on a section of the site was submitted to Bradford Council by Keighley-based Terra Firma.

The plans would create 640 square metres of employment space, but the application shows that most of the site would “remain unchanged”.

Four people had objected to the plans, claiming the site should be used for housing, and that “no thought had been given" to the presence nearby of a school.

And three people wrote to the council supporting the scheme, saying the work would tidy land that had been disused for two decades.

Approving the scheme, planners said: “Employment use of the site is established and acceptable in principle and the proposal does not raise significant concerns regarding impact on visual or residential amenity, highway safety, drainage biodiversity or any other planning-related matter.”

A condition of the approval is that the units can only open between 7am and 8pm.

The land has a long history regarding proposed developments.

Numerous different applications to build homes on the site have been approved over the years, but work on the various projects has never materialised.

In 2021, an application to convert the site into a waste and recycling sorting business was submitted to Bradford Council.

The plan proved to be controversial, with over 200 people objecting, and it was turned down.