The parking situation at Saltaire will present councillors with a real dilemma when they discuss new restrictions later this month. The proposal up for debate will be whether or not to turn the village's two main car parks into short-stay pay-and-display facilities. It follows complaints that commuters using the trains from Saltaire are leaving their cars in the free car parks all day, clogging up space needed for tourists.

The village has a good hi-tech industrial base, but what brings the visitors - and their money - there is the mill, the unique streets, the shops and the location beside the canal and the river within sight of the woods of Shipley Glen.

If, as local people say, some of those visitors are having to drive away again because they aren't able to find anywhere to park, then the situation is clearly unsatisfactory.

But it is far from a simple choice between tourists and commuters. Saltaire has to do right by both groups. There is a strong campaign being waged to persuade people to travel to work by public transport. Yet many of those who use Saltaire station do not live within walking distance of it. They need to drive there. If they aren't able to park, there is a strong chance that they will decide to travel all the way to work by car instead. So what helps Saltaire's tourism could well harm the wider environment.

The real answer, surely, is not to set the needs of one group against those of the other but to try to identify additional parking space close to Saltaire to satisfy them both.

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