The opening of a new supermarket in Keighley town centre will finally bring an end to a years long saga that has been compared to Bradford’s “hole in the ground.”
On Thursday a new branch of Aldi opens on a site off Gresley Road and East Parade, when Paralympic gold medallist Ben Watson, who won two cycling golds in Tokyo, performs the ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8am.
It will see the supermarket giant moving from a smaller unit a short distance from the site to a much larger purpose-built supermarket, served by a huge car park.
A row of smaller shops has also been built as part of the development, but details of future occupants have not yet been revealed.
And a drive thru restaurant is also planned for the same site – but work on that part of the development is yet to start.
The retail development has been built on the former Alexandra Mills site, a long vacant site that had been subject to one of the district’s biggest failed regeneration schemes.
Alexandra Mills was one of Keighley’s many industrial sites, but in the past two decades had been targeted for redevelopment.
The site was once earmarked for a new shopping destination that would be dubbed the Worth Valley Shopping Centre.
The initial plan was for the £30m centre to include a cinema, restaurants and shops, and the proposals were seen as one of the town’s biggest regeneration schemes in years.
It was estimated that the scheme could bring 600 jobs to the town centre.
Cineworld was one of the early names to be proposed for the development, which was due to start in 2013 and be completed by 2015.
As time passed the cinema and restaurant plans were dropped, and the site changed hands, with the focus instead on retail. 56,000 ft.² of retail space was heavily marketed to high street names by developers UandI.
In 2017 the developers acknowledged that no retailers had signed up to the scheme, raising questions about its future.
In 2019 the development was raised at a meeting of Bradford Council, where members discussed various regeneration schemes in Keighley.
Cllrs were told that planning permission was being finalised for the site when the High Street crisis that saw several major retailers go bust hit the UK.
This led to retailers that were interested in the site pulling out.
Bowling and Barkerend. Image: Bradford Council
At the meeting of the Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee in February 2019, Chair of the committee Cllr Rizwana Jamil (Lab, Bowling and Barkerend) said: “It seems similar to what happened in Bradford with Westfield.”
The Westfield shopping centre proposal – which later became Broadway, saw a large swathe of the city centre demolished to make way for a multi million-pound shopping centre.
However after the recession hit the development stalled, leaving a huge hole in the centre of Bradford for over a decade. The centre finally opened in 2015.
The Aire Valley Shopping Centre was later scrapped, With Aldi announcing plans to take on the site and relocate from its current Gresley Road store.
The supermarket chain’s original plan was for a new Aldi to anchor the scheme, which would include another large retail unit, drive thru café and row of smaller shops, all built around a large car park.
These plans were approved by Bradford Council in 2021.
The development has been altered since then, with the second large store dropped from the plans.
The initial scheme also planned to retain the Cricketers Arms pub on Coney Lane – which dated back to the 1840s.
The Victorian pub was due to stand alongside the modern shops as part of the development.
But the pub closed its doors in 2022, with the owners saying the business was no longer economically viable.
Aldi re-drew the plans in light of the closure, deciding to demolish the old pub rather than retain it as an empty building.
Although the Aldi is opening on Thursday, the drive thru café is yet to be constructed. Artists’ impressions put out by Aldi several years ago showed a Tim Horton on the site.
However, the Canadian fast food chain has yet to confirm if it is moving onto the site.
