THE plug could be pulled on plans to build a new supermarket at Otley if planning difficulties are not ironed out, an Otley Town Councillor has warned.

Coun Phil Coyne, (Lab, Otley and Wharfedale), said that Sainsbury's was prepared to drop its application to build a multi-million pound supermarket at Bondgate if it cannot be built at the back of the site.

Planning officers from Leeds City Council would prefer the building to be at the front of the site and the car park to be at the back as they say it would provide easier access to Otley Station and fit in better with the rest of the town.

Coun Coyne said: "Sainsbury's is saying that if they are forced to build at the front of the site they will walk away."

Representatives from Sainsbury's and the town council will meet with planning officers at a special site meeting on April 4.

Coun Coyne said the town council was anxious that the building be at the back of the site as it would increase link shopping and reduce the impact of the supermarket on the trade of the town.

He said: "If the car park is at the front of the site people are more likely to go to the store and carry on into town. That area is becoming quite interesting and if people can get a glimpse of it they are far more likely not to get back in their car and drive away.

"To have the building at the front of the site in a bid to encourage more people to use public transport and forego the benefits of having it at the back of the site is pious and in my view wrong.."

Situating the building at the front of the site would also threaten the planned transformation of the old tannery into accommodation as an access route would have to be built through it.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.