Councillors believe a new roundabout on the Aire Valley trunk road, linked to a bridge over a railway, could be the answer to a traffic bottleneck near a level crossing.

Craven District Council has recommended the radical plan to North Yorkshire County Council, after giving the thumbs down to three alternative proposals put forward by county highway chiefs.

And district councillors have also asked the county to go back to the drawing board and produce another idea for bridging the Leeds to Skipton railway line at Cross Hills.

At present, traffic travelling along the A6068, the old trunk road through Steeton and Eastburn, must wait at Cross Hills level crossing before reaching the Aire Valley trunk road.

Trains are so frequent that delays can be as long as 30 minutes in an hour.

County bosses earlier this year produced three options for solving the problem. But Craven district councillors are not happy with any of them, particularly because they have an adverse impact on the nearby industrial estate. Their new option, to be debated at its planning meeting next Monday, would involve constructing a roundabout on the A6068 near the Clayton Hall estate and a road with a bridge over the railway directly linked with a new roundabout on the Aire Valley trunk road near Windles slaughter house. The project would also involve a slight diversion of Eastburn Beck.

The three county options involved building a bridge on the line of the present road, constructing a loop road through the Airedale industrial estate to rejoin the A6068, and building a link from the A6068 through the estate and directly joining the Aire Valley road with two motorway-style roundabouts.

Craven District Council planning officer Sian Watson said the county proposals would take up too much land on the industrial estate, which had excellent potential for development and employment.

And the option which involved a direct link via two new roundabouts with the Aire Valley trunk road, would reduce the area needed for a 15 metre-long landscaping tree belt designed to help blend the industrial site into the Aire Valley landscape.