Gino and Nancy's headline anniversary at Cut Italia

Immensely popular hairdressing couple Gino and Nancy Familio have celebrated 30 years as owners of Cut Italia, at No. 88 Kirkgate. They met through hairdressing and next year will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Gino (Luigi) was born into a hairdressing family in Naples and came to England in 1969. He worked at salons in Bradford and Leeds, going on to manage the upmarket Carlo and Jeffrey hairdresser's in Leeds, where clients included Leeds United footballers. A hairdresser for more than 50 years, Gino won prestigious national competitions in the 1970s. After 30 years at Cut Italia in Silsden, he and Nancy, who was an apprentice at Rogue's in Bradford when she met Gino, regard all their clients not as customers but as friends. Their son Alex ran Cut Italia between 2009 and 2015 but has since moved to the United States where his wife comes from. 

Planning chiefs turn down scheme for road to serve new school and hundreds of homes

The proposal to build a countryside-destroying road to serve Silsden's proposed new school at Hawber Cote Lane and thus enable up to 1,000 homes in two phases to be built on farmland has been turned down by Bradford council planning chiefs.

The momentous decision was announced on April 2nd 2019, nearly a year after the road plan was submitted, uniting Silsdeners to protect fields, hedgerows, trees and dry-stone walls in an area immensely popular with walkers of all ages. The campaign generated more than 400 objections to the plans. 

The manner and suddenness of the decision took campaigners by surprise. They had been awaiting a date for a council planning meeting at which the application would be discussed. But it has been revealed (April 2nd) that the scheme for an enabling road has been refused by the 'area planning manager or group planner' rather than the planning committee. Above: MP John Grogan joined protesters at a gathering in Brown Bank Lane in January.

In September many people supported a protest walk on public paths that cross the route of the proposed enabling road. The road would have started in Bolton Road, on the up stretch near Tannery Corner. From there it would have headed through the countryside to Hawber Cote Lane where the proposed new school is to be built. The planners say the application (by the Silsden Development Company) does not provide sufficient information and in particular is not supported by a transport assessment.

The planners also say the proposed development would be incremental and prejudice the comprehensive development of safeguarded land in the wider area. The campaign was spearheaded by among others (left to right) Sue Grimley, Jim Grimley, Caroline Whitaker, Janet Russell and Cathy Liddle. 

View from Hawber Lane looking towards fields where the road would have headed towards the proposed new school, due to be built in the fields to the left of the tree-obscured barn.

The fields towards Swartha ultimately could have become a substantial housing estate. The applicant has the right to appeal against the planners' verdict.