Families have welcomed plans to turn an empty school site into a housing development.

But they want Bradford Council to ask the developers to give funding to make a main road safer.

The site of former Wellington Middle School in Leeds Road, Eccleshill, has been empty for two years.

Fire swept through the site when a blaze broke out at the caretaker's lodge recently. There has also been fly-tipping on the site and the land has been littered with broken bottles and dog dirt.

Teenagers who gather there at night are also being blamed by nearby residents for noise and disturbance.

Now Sheffield-based Ackroyd and Abbott Homes has submitted a planning application for 45 houses and 14 apartments which would involve the demolition of the caretaker's lodge.

Liberal Democrat ward councillor Howard Middleton, pictured at the site, said: "This must be about the only school site here where residents have welcomed housing and people have written to the planning department with support."

Coun Middeton said part of the site had been transferred to the new Wellington Primary School for playing fields but the school had been unable to use it because of its state. He also said he was asking Bradford's planning pan-el to make a contribution to road-safety measures a condition of planning consent.

Coun Middleton said: "While we greatly welcome this development the road is already very busy and this will obviously mean more families with cars.

"We want a very thorough traffic assessment and appropriate road-safety measures drawing up.

"I would imagine the houses would be about £85,000 each and that's a lot of money for the developers.

"I think it would be right to ask them for funding."

Nobody from Ackroyd and Abbott Homes was available to comment.