PUT 10 Skiptonians into a darkened room and ask them to come up with a single plan for the town for the next century or so and they'll be there for weeks. At the end you'll have at best three radically opposed views - the pessimist might argue that you would have 10.

One man's pedestrianisation of the High Street is another man's inability to get to see his favourite auntie without going on a long detour; one woman's desire for more car parking space is another woman's ugly eyesore; build a road here, close a road there; we need more houses, there's too much development.

No wonder councillors might feel battered as they try to piece together a solution to our mutual problems of providing enough spaces for both visitors and people who travel into town to work. This latter is an oft-forgotten but large and vitally important group - there's almost 20 of them employed in the Craven Herald office for starters!

The Civic Society's poll on the first set of plans was a conclusive rejection and what emerged from a council meeting this week was a scaled down version. There is little sign that this will produce a consensus even within the council chamber but somewhere down the line the town has to accept that its very modern problems need a resolution.

Skipton is not a failing town, but it is a town at the crossroads. It can progress or it can petrify and enter a long, slow but steady decline, like some grand Victorian lady fallen on hard times. Let us hope our 10 Skiptonians can agree on one thing: doing nothing is the worst option.